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The kettle had been just over halfway to boiling when Pearl’s text came through, and was whistling steam by the time Rose could calm her laughter over the phone.

She looks halfway freezerburnt in the pic she had sent: Pearl, already layered in the muss of a long day and the sweat of dance practice, red-nosed and miserable and bundled up to her chin with the snow-caked doors of the rec center behind her. A sign in one of them reads “NO WATER -- PIPES BURST”

The caption, though, is the clincher: “My dorm’s plumbing is out, too. I hate to ask, but would it be okay if I showered at yours?”

First of all, that picture was going to be Rose’s new home screen. But the real punchline, here -- which she tried to articulate to Pearl over the phone, through her doubled-over gigglefit -- is that Pearl would think twice about asking to come over. That she would 'hate to ask'! She’s been doing so for months. And with all other possible showers on the opposite end of campus, and Rose’s apartment hardly a couple blocks from the rec center, it just hits her as a uniquely Pearlish blend of pitiful-funny that she would even feel the need to ask permission.

To use her shower, especially. (Well. She left that a bit more implicit, over the phone.)

Rose grins to herself, still, watching the tea steep. She isn’t exactly dolled up -- it’s a healthy piece of late in the evening, and she had just planned to read until bed -- but Pearl has a way of shyly eyeing Rose in even her most kickaround outfits.

(Gold-good things flutter in her chest, there. Sweeten soft.)

Instead of changing, she’s piled a stack of towels and her bathrobe next to the door -- a couple mugs of hot, cheery chamomile on the coffee table, too. So when the door sounds off with a tangle of tender knocks (oh, oh, her knuckles must be numb), Rose is quick to whisk it open with one towel over her shoulder, making little effort to hide the bubble of laughter in her voice: “Poor thing, oh no! Come on, come on -- oof, goodness, it is cold out --”

Hopefully her smile doesn’t look too pleased.

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Pearl's knuckles are pale now with how tightly her fingers are wrapped around the mug. It's like Rose has her on a line: yes, reeling her in by ruthless inches, giving her just enough slack to breathe. So easy, it's ridiculous. She's been hooked from the start. They both know it.

Her throat's dry. "You've -- you've mentioned any number of things."

Pearl’s fingers are rattletrap-shaking around her mug: like she’s trying to hide, nearly. Rose can’t have that.

She smiles at her reply -- “That’s true.” -- and gently, gently takes the mug. It’s mostly empty. Rose wouldn’t be able to reach the coffee table to place it down if she weren’t rearranging Pearl’s legs in her lap: if she weren’t sitting up, shifting position: settling herself between them.

“But one thing in particular, now.” Her arms post on either side of Pearl’s waist, and the bottom hem of the robe begins to ride up gently as she leans closer. Rose’s eyes drink her in: ways far more warming than tea. “Would you like to know what it is?”

Pearl's grip loosens, letting Rose take the cup without protest. Not knowing what else to do with her hands, she lets them fall into her lap, fingers twisting around each other. Her lips move almost without volition, shaping the word.

"What?"

She was so cold, fifteen minutes ago: she thinks she'll never be cold again. Is that Rose's body heat that swirls across her skin, or something else? It smoulders through her, all the way from her nose down to the tips of her toes.

Big, rapt, cornflower blues -- hazy and sweet. Watching Rose move nearer. Fine trim of a blush, underneath: a fine place to aim for idle kisses.

Rose leans closer.

“I love, Pearl…”

Rose leans closer.

“... how you’re so…”

Pickpocket fingers slip along a slim waist.

“...ticklish.”

Pearl's eyes widen, catching on at the last moment, but all she gets out is a squeak of anticipation before it's upon her. She twists and squirms -- trying to escape! -- but it only seems to tangle her further in the fluffy, voluminous folds of Rose's robe. Which, nevertheless, offers no protection at all.

"Roooose!" she pleads, between gasps of laughter, wrists flapping as she weakly tries to bat away the insistent tease of fingers on her ribs.

Rose laughs too -- she lights up with giddy cruelty. Pearl’s body is a crafted instrument that she’s honed over the years to dance, and express, and carry herself with total awareness, and here she is now: wriggling helplessly on Rose’s couch.

“Confess! Confess!” she laughs, “There’s still time to atone!”

She keeps up the torment a few seconds longer, then relents -- still grinning -- and gives them both a moment to catch their breath.

Stays put over Pearl, though: still hovering.

Given a reprieve, Pearl just lies there for a moment, half-curled up small in the robe. Chest heaving as she sucks in air, muscles trembling with the echo of sensation. She almost expects a second, even stealthier attack -- Rose can be merciless when she wants to be -- but none comes. Finally she opens her eyes and looks up at Rose, trying for an accusing glare but probably landing somewhere around sweetly sheepish instead.

"That was underhanded."

Sprawled underneath Rose, cheeks flushed to bruising, chest rising and falling as she shivers and sighs... It’s not so unlike other sights.

Rose tries not to look too pleased.

“I’m dreadful, I know. The only thing worse would be if you rewarded me for it.” Close enough to lean: to nudge her nose against Pearl’s, playful. She smells like chamomile and cold. “Maybe with a kiss?”

How can Pearl deny her that? (Pearl can't deny her anything.) Indeed, she's suddenly starving for Rose's mouth. She shimmies so her head is propped up against the armrest, in the perfect position for her to put both her hands on Rose's face and bravely tug her down for a good, slow one.

It’s a bit like sculpting, kissing Pearl. Rose never has of course -- sculpted, that is -- but something in the way Pearl goes altogether supple in the brow, in the voice, in the well-formed angle of her jaw… a bit like shaping warm clay, each time Rose deepens the touch, with a swivel of chin: cool and unhurried, like a kiss underwater.

Tonight, though, she finishes quickly and sweetly: punctuated with a teasing little nibble on Pearl’s lower lip before she ducks away, grinning. Tempting. It’s tempting, to just… convince Pearl to forget why she even came here tonight. For at least half an hour or so.

But Rose has her moments of self-restraint. She shifts back onto her knees, pulling away -- offering Pearl a hand to sit upright. “I suppose I ought to let you shower someday.”

"That would be nice, yes." Pearl sighs as Rose pulls away, her lips tingling pleasantly with the aftermath. Kissing Rose is like -- it dissolves every anxious, buzzing thought in her head, leaves her present in a world of sensation, a rare and tenuous state of being for her. Even this relatively brief kiss has left her with a sense of good-quiet, warm-heat. She takes Rose's hand, swinging her long legs off the couch and then pushing herself to her feet with a hint of unsteadiness. The brush of cool air against her skin through the open robe makes her miss being curled up next to Rose on the couch, already.

Maybe Rose will let her stay for a little while after her shower.

The robe is lipping open near the belt, just a bit -- just enough for Rose to pause for an appreciative eye. She looks good. Even if her clothes are far too large for Pearl, Rose likes seeing them on her. Knowing Pearl is all wrapped up in her scent. Burying her nose against it to breathe in, when she isn’t looking.

It’s cute, and satisfying, but also quieting. Soothing. It’s nice, is all, it should be fine to leave it at that.

The moment passes, and Rose tips a wink before taking her hand to gently tug Pearl in the direction of the hallway. “You know where the shower is. Go ahead! Use my towel -- it’s the green one hanging up.”

She bends to scoop up the plastic bag with the sopping clothes, and begins to make way for the laundry nook.

After a few steps she pauses, though. Adds slyly over her shoulder, “Oh, and… new showerhead. Very nice. Very nice.” A delicious little shiver as illustrating, hips tilting in just a suggestion of a stir. “Do give it a try, sweet thing.”

One more candied look, trimmed with a smile, and Rose whisks away down to the other end of the hall.

She brought a towel of her own, but it seems like too much effort to dig it out of her gym bag right now. And Rose's towels are all much fluffier than hers, anyway. Fluffy and generous, and they smell like the copious amounts of product Rose uses to keep her curls looking the way they do. (They smell like Rose.)

Rose's highly unsubtle suggestion puts the colour back in her cheeks, just like that. Pearl still manages to call out after her, a weak parting short: "I'm trying to get clean here, you know." Really, Rose is incorrigible. Shaking her head, she pulls the robe around herself and goes into the bathroom.

The robe gets hung neatly on a hook and Pearl steps straight into the shower. She lets out a quiet groan of relief as the caked sweat of the long day and hours of dance practice and tramping around in the snow begins to wash off. Heat, soaking into her muscles, steaming off her skin. This new showerhead is nice. Powerful, a steady torrent. Rose's words come to mind, and with them an image of Rose herself in the shower, all gleaming curves and hair heavy and dark with water, head thrown back. Pearl shivers, hot as the water is. She trails her hands down from her collarbones, over her chest, down her belly and her hips...she wasn't going to take Rose up on her suggestion, this time, but the touch does feel nice.

As she's rinsing shampoo out of her hair, it seems to her that it might be a good idea to try out some of the new settings on the fancy showerhead. Mere curiosity, of course. She detaches it to examine it better, but then a dollop of foam sneaks into her left eye and her hands instinctively fly to get it out -- except that more water just makes its way into her eyes in the process, and then she's losing her balance and grabbing blindly for something and knocking what sounds like twenty bottles of shampoo and conditioner and body wash off the racks, loofahs and razors and brushes in a great thudding rolling mess, and naturally as she falls she catches herself against the door and it flies open so that water from the errant showerhead sprays all over the tile and thoroughly soaks the floor rug.

"Shit!"

It’s not that Rose intends to eavesdrop, really. But there isn’t much else to do, once Pearl’s sodden outfit is humming away in a soapy load of wash.

Rose considers whiling away the time until Pearl is finished by thumbing through her novel -- maybe with a glass of dark wine. Maybe with enough mulled invitation in her gaze to draw her into bed. Keep her here, a little longer. It is awful cold outside.

Instead she finds herself wheedling away at the hardwood with her toe -- a few stray streaks of damp lead to the bathroom from the couch. For all her half-sincere efforts, she hadn’t gotten her guest completely dry.

But even with the traces of water long gone, Rose lingers still near the bathroom. And she feels herself listening a bit too intently through the wood of the door. (Pearl can never keep quiet for long.)

Pearl. Oh. Oh, just imagine. She has such trouble with coming while standing. It hasn’t happened yet, in fact; at least Rose has yet to see. Her knees give out, first -- turned to water, spilled and runny under warm blossoms of pleasure -- shivering and folded double at the waist: legs useless as she unspools with a ribbon of moan. Sometimes she curls inward so tightly that her nose buries between her knees: like she’s trying to hide from her own candy-bright livewire body.

It’s so sweet. So wickedly, unbearably sweet, Rose can’t help but picture it now. How the strings of muscle in her legs would jump as she leaned against the tile wall for support -- maybe posting a leg on the wash bench, craving a tentative hold -- wringing every ounce of coordination available to remain standing as she gasped, as she grinded -- rolled her hips against nothing but a pour of heat --

-- just as a tangle of clatters and knocks and a furtive ”Shit!” seem to prove her right.

They aren’t the happy sounds Rose expected, though. Sounds like they fucking hurt. So without much consideration for how conspicuous the speediness may be, Rose flurries a few knocks against the door.

“Pearl? Everything alright?”

… and at the same time begins to crack the door open, impatient for an answer.

Pearl flails for the knob and manages to get the water off before the entire bathroom is consumed by flood. Wincing, she twists to look at the spot on her hip where she hit something on the way down. No injury, thank god, though it promises to blossom into a future bruise. That could've gone worse.

"Yeah, everything's fine!" she calls out, voice pitched slightly too high. She's on her knees, half out of the shower and scooping up bottles, when the door opens. So much for a peaceful shower: she must look like a half-drowned kitten, her hair dripping bathwater onto the floor. She darts a glance up at Rose, mortified.

"Sorry, I'm sorry! I just...had a klutzy moment. I'll clean this up right away."

The wall of heat pours a sticky greeting as the door swings open. She first notices the lack of running water -- cut off, ostensibly -- and manages to land her sock in the middle of a fat puddle with her first step inside.

Urgh.

Enough steam spills out of the bathroom, after a moment, to reveal Pearl: half-hanging out of the shower, favoring one leg, and looking ready to disintegrate all over the shampoo bottles cradled in one arm.

Oh, no.

Rose tries for something sympathetic-sounding -- it almost turns into a guffaw -- but the compromise is a chirping little cluck as she steps further into the bathroom.

“Oh, baby, no --” She can’t quite fight off the ring of laughter in her voice. Her foot nudges a pumice stone that’s flung itself near the sink as she bends to help Pearl upright. Very dutifully ignores her vulnerable state of dress, too. Seemingly. “Oh, ouch! Are you okay?”

"Yes, yes!" Flustered in several ways, Pearl fumbles the bottles before managing to set them down on the sink. She darts a guilty look at Rose's feet, hearing the squelch of soaked socks on tile. "Nothing serious -- you don't have to get wet for me!" Oh, no. Worse and worse.

Honestly, sometimes Pearl feels as if all she's done since she met Rose is make ridiculous messes in front of her. If her skin wasn't already flushed thoroughly pink from the shower, her creeping blush would be visible. Shying out of Rose's grasp, she kneels again to gather up the pumice stone and a razor, head bowed.

Rose can't help it. She wants to laugh. Pretty, poised, hyper-competent Pearl, with her discerning looks down an aristocrat nose and manicured outfits set to match down to her class notes is just... kind of a disaster, really, when it comes down to it, and not just when Rose is around.

(Though. She does boost the odds an awful lot.)

Rose's mouth opens to reply. But as she watches Pearl double over again, it becomes brightly difficult to ignore how beautifully biddable she looks this way. Bent as if to kneel. The just-pinked skin of lower back curving: her shoulder blades framing eaves above the tender Braille of backbone: freckled fretboard ribs --

"Let me get them." Low, kind, dulcet. Hearing her speak, one would never believe Rose's mouth has gone a bit dry. Gently -- gently -- her hand rests on Pearl's shoulder for attention. She's warm, and Rose can feel the static pop of her nerves, and a fondness tugs alongside hunger on the little pulleys in her chest. "Finish your shower, sweetness."

Edited 2015-10-22 14:25 (UTC)

Pearl looks back up at her, hesitates. There's something about Rose's tone that brooks no argument. The endearment, the way Rose's mouth wraps around the word, sends a little tremor through Pearl-- or perhaps it's the intent way Rose is looking at her-- she's suddenly aware of how very naked she is, the faint caress of air against her cooling skin--

Pearl's mouth is dry too.

"O-okay." Snatching up a bottle of body wash from the sink counter, she backs into the shower. "I'll just! Finish up in here. Thank you."

"Atta girl," she offers to Pearl's retreating back. It comes across less charmingly flip than intended -- lower -- snagging to a richer register that sounds... warm. Rose hadn't meant for that. Rose had meant to pepper some teases in before retreating to the room. She's pressing too much. Too aggressive. Part of Pearl is enjoying it, along with most of Rose, but that doesn't mean this is appropriate for their arrangement.

Pearl's entitled to breathing room, and right now Rose is removing that option.

And despite her own urging being the reason behind it, the snick of the shower door sounds awfully close to the snap-shut of a cookie jar.

The bottles try to slip out of her grip as she stands them on the sink -- they can always be stashed later -- while Rose collects her thoughts. Weighs options. It's only when Rose is just beginning to mop up the spilled water with a spare towel that she realizes the shower hasn't been running. She blinks; twice.

"... did you belatedly freeze stiff in there?"

Edited 2015-10-23 04:19 (UTC)

"Rose..." Pearl's voice from behind the door is pained. "I think I broke the showerhead, maybe." She's been standing there for long, increasingly uncomfortable minutes, unsuccessfully trying to turn the water back on. Beginning to shiver as the heat fades from her body. Trying to figure out what the hell to do. Of course this would happen, and after Rose was so kind, letting her shower here, and making her tea, and everything. Was this showerhead expensive? Rose has fairly lavish taste; it must have been.

She swallows apprehensively. "Can you take a look?"

“Goodness,” she says, making room for a few ‘tsk’s. “At this rate we’ll just have to find you a garden hose.” Still smiling, though. Despite that Pearl’s making it awfully damn hard to be decent.

She reaches down to roll off her soggy socks -- they can wait in the sink, a moment -- before padding the half-step needed to the shower door. Normally the collection of steam on the glass would be enough to obfuscate anyone inside, but the room has cooled, and Pearl is plain to see: long and lovely and needing Rose.

(It’s delicious. Having her boxed in like this. Want tugs, quick and slight and bright as a struck match.)

Considering a playful little knock on the glass -- but discarding the idea -- Rose tugs the door open and neatly plucks the showerhead from Pearl’s hands. She can see right away that it isn’t broken. Pearl must have been squeezing the nozzle too tightly from nerves, and thought she’d jammed it.

But Rose takes a few long, long seconds studying it closely. Her head shakes gravely, and her mouth hums with significant thinking sounds. “Oh, my… I don’t know… hmm…”

(Pearl shivering in her peripheral is a little too sweet to pass up.)

“I’m sorry, Pearl…” She sighs. “Maybe it just --” The showerhead springs to life in her hand and she laughs, “-- works just fine after all!”

The spray is on a gentle setting, but that doesn’t make hosing down her beleaguered houseguest from head to hip any less fun.

Pearl begins to droop as Rose's countenance falls, a dejected slump creeping into her shoulders. But she looks up as an irrepressible giggle fills the shower, and --

"Ah!"

The spray hits her right in the face, as warm and exuberant as Rose's laughter, and she instinctively throws up her arms to ward it off. Not that it does any good, of course. Then she's half-sputtering, half-laughing along -- almost rushing forward to give Rose a relieved hug, but mindful of her drenched state at the last moment. She's already gotten Rose wet enough tonight, surely.

"I was really worried for a minute, there!"

The spray dips down -- she can afford a drop of mercy -- as Rose glows at the reassured grin on Pearl’s face: a little shy, a little sheepish. And anemic in love.

It makes Rose feel a little godless, that thrill of power. And on top of her so bare and open, and cornered in Rose’s home... Oh, she just wants to put Pearl in her pocket.

“Never worry, sweet thing,” she hums. The shower is small enough that she can lean in, easily -- can drop a double-peck, quick and laughing, on Pearl’s damp cheek. “You’re worth a thousand fancy showerheads.”

Though. She still hasn’t handed it back to her. The water continues to flow down along Pearl’s feet and shins as Rose pauses; quiet and steam fill the shower with heated weight.

“Although.” Rose watches a rivulet of water start from her collar -- down her proud tilt of breastbone -- along her navel -- “This one is quite nice.”

Her eyes have gone soft. Sweet. She leans in, again: close enough to kiss. “I’d like to show you how.”

Edited 2015-10-25 02:14 (UTC)

Pearl's abruptly aware of every inch of distance between them as it narrows and narrows again. She can't help but crane her neck a little, wanting to be closer, drawn inexorably in by Rose's gravity. Those eyes, fixed all on her; lips, faintly parted with promise. The stream of water, still spilling across her skin in little prickles and curls of heat, pattering against the tile with a soft and constant noise that's entirely at odds with the way Pearl's pulse is suddenly thudding in her ears.

She was going to ask Rose if they could maybe...after her shower, but...now. Now's not a bad time, either.

"I...okay. Yes." After a moment she adds, with a little hitch in her voice, "Please."