unfortunately, like a fool, i said, "it's not like i want to let you go"

[hellbred]

( continued from here! )

[ Denji stares up Aki's way, visibly annoyed, as she brooks another crest of colorless smoke invading her senses, slender tendrils ghosting over their heads, nearly transparent in the lamplight. This nicotine-addicted slag. Always with the insults… It means kissing! She kissed them! What other meaning could make out have? Still, she roughly erases what characters she was writing (she'd forgotten midway what the stroke pattern to one kanji was), decorating her report in rubber shavings. ]

I mean, you saw Emi-chan's stuff. A bunch of her dresses and skirts looked kinda itchy, but she had some grown-up outfits in the very, very back!

[ Instead of writing what she took, her pencil draws a series of doodles across the page: some peanut snacks, a bottle of tea looted from the mini fridge, a vial that she kindly labels as pirfume, and then the garment bag. ]

So I took one, since I don't got a whole lotta those. [ Most of her closet is filled with clothes from the secondhand store… and some secondhand straight from Aki's own wardrobe. For example, the tanktop she's wearing under her blouse right now. ] It's gonna make my rack look suuuper sexy on me, and then guys will be linin' up outside our apartment to take me on dates to the zoo and all that!

[ No, Denji doesn't know what the proper attire is for a zoo date. ]

…'course I'm not gonna go, seeing as I'm already taken. But you get the idea. What'd you get?

[ If she's remembering correctly, Aki's hands didn't look as full as her own walking out of the dressing room. Did she not take anything and now she's regretting it? ]

Comments

[hellbred]

[ Denji barely recognizes what she's done as an infraction, as worthy of a pair of jaws nipping at her, spraying spit and vitriol in her face. Maybe that's the bulldog in her; all she really wants to take in is the tremor moving through Aki's entire musculature, her skin and thighs, as if something intrinsic inside of her were fraying, reshaping. Her puffy, slick-warm folds rolling down her knuckles, a mouth swallowing candy down from the stick, hurrying to get to the surprise center. ]

Fuck. [ — the curse punches out of her as she watches. Sweat stings the rim of her eyes, but she forces herself not to blink while her fingers jam in, just right, palm grinding hard into her pussy, shoving and shoving. The smell of sex coming off of her, off them both, dilutes every thought in her head into an unintelligible string of fucks and she's burning, she's so wet, so tight. And it even if Denji's not the one getting off, even if Aki looks like she wants to slam her face into a door hard enough that the bloodstain won't come out — it feels so damnably good. She can't possibly expect her to feel bad about about throwing her off, can she?

The vibrator drums at Aki's clit, close to forgotten at this point with Denji leaning into each thrust of her fingers, her pelvis backing each slam, trying to gouge out more sounds from her — and when she doesn't hear anything else, when finally nothing comes out besides the creak of her throat airlessly vacuuming in oxygen, that's how Denji knows what's incoming. Without thinking, without care for Aki might jab or twist away from her, she presses forward, desperate to feel her spasming and warm against her. Part of her face turned into the pillow, she noses into her cheek, licking up the tear routing its way down.

And then stillness. And then not. ]

Mm? [ Slow to connect the dots, that's the only thing Aki gets for a bit, until her chin lifts, revealing Denji's openly squinting gaze.

A soft click turns off the vibrator. Denji lets it roll off to the side of the bed, throwing a hand out to blindly reach for the nightstand. She's too far. Grunting, she flops off from Aki, wincing as her tailbone sits on the curved plastic of the toy, and then she flops over again, pulling out the first drawer. The drawer bangs back in after she does feel anything noteworthy, and her hand drops a step to the second drawer. ]

What'm I even… Ah.

[ Finding them side by side, she quickly retrieves the cigarette carton, the cold lighter, both tucked into her fingers. She briefly looks down at the items, the scrunch of her brows. ]

Never mind, [ she says, though nothing she said before warrants the phrase. ] Here.

[luckyspike]

[Staring up at the ceiling as her body cools too suddenly, like a boiling pot set on a mat soaked with cool water, Aki only listens as Denji rolls away from her, fumbles around in her drawers. She's usually so specific about letting her do anything like this - hell, letting anyone go through her things isn't something she would gladly ever do without comment. But right now she needs one thing, and it's the familiar feeling of the box of unopened cigarettes and a lighter paired in her palm.]

[She doesn't even sit up as she opens the box, taps one out. Sets it between her lips before bringing the flame down to burn the tip. The angle is awkward but she's clearly done this before, an effortless snap sounding when it's lit before she places the pair of items down and takes a deep, deep drag of the nicotine.]

[Her head is spinning.]

Go get a towel. [She feels soaked with sweat and damp with her own wetness. The sheets are going to need to be changed tomorrow. If she could kick Denji, maybe she would - but thankfully her legs are as stiff and gelatinous as a custard wrongly placed in the freezer. She couldn't even nudge her with a toe.]

...Hell you even do that for, [she mutters, the smoke hovering over her as she takes another deep suck of the cigarette. Like this was something Denji did to spite her.]

[hellbred]

[ Aki's not the only one sticky with lethargy. She'd usually whine at her for breathing her smelly ash breath indoors (and in her direction), but she can barely dredge the words out of herself, forget about unroll from the layers of sheets half-draped over both of their legs. The dull look she sends her way transmits as much. Likely more.

But still, she turns, shows the lean, red-splotched length of her back to Aki, scooting her feet over the edge of the bed, balancing her curled toes against the base board. Denji tucks a few loose strands of her hair behind an ear. Quietly says to her: ] Just wanted to pay you back.

[ This could be for anything: the makeup tutorial, for helping with the report, or for partnering with her on Emi-chan's case, or even just for waking her up this morning. Odds are, it's for everything and then some. ]

I didn't want ya t'say I couldn't stay after all, either. Guess I wanted you to need me?

[ With that stupid answer aired out, and the keen sense she's admitted too much, Denji shuffles out, quickly. However, just as she does, she realizes something: She really needs to pee — again. This time in a proper toilet. Aki's towel is going to have to wait a bit.

After the little strips of blood dancing in her urine are flushed, her hands washed, a towel flung across her neck, and she's made a pit stop by the fridge, she peeks her raggedy head back into the room. Like, she's trying to see if the coast is clear — but, no, there's still the scent of cigarettes toasting the air. Her nose wrinkles, but she still makes it back to Aki, handing over the towel, then a bottle of ice-cold water. Another of its kind wrung between Denji's hands, her teeth worrying at her lips. ]

Aki… Can I still stick around 'til morning?

[luckyspike]

[Denji lays out her logic and Aki only watches her from where she lays, cigarette set between her lips as she tries to weed out the strangeness within the logic she states. Pay her back... Pay her back for what? Denji gets up and builds on her logic and still Aki says nothing, only watches her and only takes another drag when she finally exits the room, listens to the toilet flush and the sink run.]

[Such a weird kid. Didn't she tell her she could stay in here tonight...? If anything, she's the one who made it complicated, not Aki. As her legs re-grow their sensation and she can finally sit upright, turn herself around in her bed to lean against the headboard. She hasn't smoked for long enough that the smell is a little unusual now, the taste gross, similar to what it was like when she first started. The calming hum of nicotine in her body still works just like it used to, but the cigarette is only half-smoked by the time she's crushing the rest of it on a ceramic coaster set on her nightstand that hasn't been used as an ashtray in a long time. At some point she refused to smoke inside anymore. When Denji comes back and hands her the towel, looks at her like a little sister about to ask to borrow her clothes tonight... The eventual request has her leveling a tired, unenthused stare at her.]

I already told you that you could. [She slides the towel between her legs, mopping the warm and sticky sensation away before reaching for the water. After the cigarette on top of the sex, the chill tastes good sliding down her throat.] But I'm not going to keep doing this until morning.

[She slides over with that said, opening the space to her and allowing Denji to climb in. She's still naked and her hips feel sore and she should get up and actually clean up, take a piss or something... but with Denji, there's no actual need to be so official about any of this. In fact, it'll just send her the wrong message. She lifts the edge of the covers.]

Come here.

[hellbred]

[ So what if it's needy of her to seek out a second confirmation. It's what she wants: Aki's tobacco-warmed voice telling her that, yes, this is okay. Yes, Denji is allowed to push through her misgivings. Linger longer than the stale scent in the room, the graying vapors hovering overhead, the dying embers shriveling in the ashtray. Yes, she can stay. She wants to hear it again and again until it's burned into her eardrums, or etched into the sky — a contract that can't be undone.

…Maybe that's too dramatic of an ask, after just having sex for the first time, though. For now, she'll settle for settling in. Planting her flag. Her eyes are getting heavy, anyway. ]

Fine. If you're that wiped out, [ she mumbles in the midst of vanishing inside the open blankets, possibly to smuggle her pouting face in without Aki's notice. Disregarding the cool spots from where they carried out their mess, the sheets are still toasty underneath, warmer than even when she shares a bed with Power. Usually, it'd have her wanting to kick her toes outside, but… Denji scooches in until their hips are touching, their arms squished side-by-side, the back of her hand resting against Aki's. She stops herself there.

On her back, she stares at the ceiling, her eyelids drooping lower and lower with each passing second. By the morning, she'll probably have let go of the mystery behind Emi-chan and her fiend, and she'll have to consider her date with Makima more seriously. She'll have to pick out an outfit, do her own makeup. She'll have to wake up and drag herself out of Aki's bed. And, for some reason, she doesn't want any of that to arrive just yet. For some reason, she doesn't want to sleep. Doesn't want to wake up, either.

However, that's a battle she's been fighting all night, and it's one she won't win, unfortunately. But before she surrenders to that bittersweet lull…

Denji can't tell if Aki's still awake or not when she turns over, chin spilling out onto her shoulder, but it doesn't really matter. Her hand curls loosely at Aki's fingers. A few seconds pass by of Denji matching her breaths to the gentle up-and-down of her chest. Just watching.

Then, slowly, quietly, she plants a kiss on her cheek — the second one it's received that evening. ]

Night, Aki.