[Littleton] It is late afternoon, a sort of sleepy time of day with long shadows and a ruddy tinge to the light that falls on everything. Warm, at least in coloring. Emily is standing in line at the passport check, visa and passport in hand (it's a reddish color, not the navy blue of an American passport), politely telling the customs agent she is a student, and has nothing to declare. She's rolling her case along, absently steering the handle with one practiced hand, and already digging her cellphone out of her messenger bag.
There is a text, to Chuck, that she is clearing customs.
It has been a long day and, back at the origin of her journey, the sun has already fallen below the plane of the sky and darkness has descended to calm and quiet the land. Here it is busy, mid-weekend and full of travelers. They push past her, impatient with her somewhat idle pace.
She is wearing a lavendar scarf, wound loosely around her neck, and the longer light-weight jacket that replaced her heavy winter coat weeks ago. When Chuck dropped her off, she'd been wearing jeans and a sweater, with that same coat draped over her arm. Now the jacket, which came almost to her knees, almost entirely obscured the swirl and hem of her skirt. And the sneakers had been switched out for proper flats, as well. Her hair was tidly done up in a cluster at the back of her head, but a few curls had escaped over the hours of flight-time, especially at the nape of her neck or near her temple.
[Carmichael] There's no need for the text, and no answer to it - it doesn't take long to figure out why. He's there, with the small handful of other people waiting for their newly arrived friends and loved ones (or business associates, or whatever) complete with a sign with 'LITTLETON' blazoned across it, a jaunty chauffeur's cap (goodness only knows where he found it) and a smile. It's a sleepy time of day in the country she left, but not so much here and now - it's mid-weekend in a fairly busy airport in middle America. All around them, people rush and roam, but here?
Here, Chuck sees Em and doesn't hesitate, but waits for her to see him before moving to wrap his arms around her, to kiss her . . . and then to reach for her baggage. Such a gentleman, he.
"Hey."
One arm is still around her, and some people comment on how cute they are, some on how they should get a room, and still others simply part to move around him - Chuck pays none of them any mind, but kisses her again, long and deep.
"Welcome home."
[Littleton] There is quite a delay between reaching her and reaching for her bag. When she looks up and sees him coming -- with the sign and the hat no less -- the exhaustion lifts from her features; she is elevated (elated), and the grin that spreads across her lips is nothing small, nothing secretive. It is unabashedly happy, quite willing (wanting) to be caught up in his embrace. Emily wraps her arms around him and holds Chuck tightly.
There is that aura of travel about her : the tiredness, the strange and heady mix of emotions (homecoming), the stiffness of having sat in the same small space for too many hours, the curls that have been tamped down (flattened) by the headrest. It is often the same, regardless of which airport one comes home to. There is the slightly off smell she wants to wash away, too many people, too close quarters. And there is the welcome smells of being near him -- shampoo, soap, after shave, detergent. They are all mingled together.
Her coat is unbuttoned, so he can slide his arms in under if he likes, learn that the skirt is actually a dress, feel the way her spine begins to melt to feel the warmth of his hand in the small of her back.
"I missed you," she whispers, into the curl of his ear. Nestles it down closer than any words-over-wires could go. And when the others comment on how they should get a room, then Chuck could feel the warmth of her flush (embarrassment) against his cheek, too, before he kissed her and she -- embarrassed or not -- returned the affection whole-heartedly.
[Carmichael] His hands did, indeed, move under her jacket though only one remains - to hold her close, to feel her against him, to feel the relaxation that moves through her (For me? Because of me?) at his touch. He doesn't blush as people murmur around them, good or bad - he simply enjoys what is, no more and no less. Because this is, of course, what they have for now.
"I missed you, too."
There's another kiss, this one pressed to her forehead, and then he's pulling away enough to move the arm from around her and under her coat to around her shoulders, while the sign and Emily's bag take up lodging in his other hand. She's been traveling and wants to wash it off of her, and he would like little more than to get her away from here, home, where he can snuggle her up to his heart's content.
"Everything went as well as you hoped it would?"
[Littleton] "Yes," she said, and it was a definite thing. No hemming or hawing, no time taken to think. The smile hasn't faded; she cannot help it. It's here to stay, at least for a little longer. "Better than expected, all things considered."
There's a quiet, now, and not because she's feeling evasive. Just that... it's been a long week, a lot to process, a lot to do. There are secrets hidden away inside her case that will take hours to explain once the explaining begins, and at the moment she's more interested in his arm around her shoulder, in the natural gravity that keeps her as a constant presence (pressure) against his side while the amble away from the terminal.
"I brought you a present," she said, casting him a sidelong glance and quirking the eyebrow nearest him mischeviously. Her eyes caught his, that grin canted slightly sideways (wry, familiar), and then she looked away. "I hope you like it."
[Carmichael] "I'm sure I will - you can show me when we get home, unless you've a burning desire to do so in the car. I thought curry for dinner? Unless you had something else in mind. I know a place, and we can stop to pick it up on the way."
So it goes, the trip through the terminal and to the car (he opens her door for her) and then to his condo - apparently, he hadn't been kidding about bringing her home for dinner and cuddling. Food of whatever variety is picked up on the way, and laid out while Em showers and changes, while some sort of music plays quietly in the background. Something fun, but that doesn't require too much attention - the better to talk, to enjoy each other.
There is, it must be said, a fairly impressive stack of IKEA boxes standing in a corner, waiting to be taken to her apartment - apparently, it's a bad idea to send Chuck shopping alone. Or to allow him to go, whatever.
[Littleton] Unless you have something else in mind... Emily chuckles and shakes her head. "I've very little in mind, to tell the truth," she confesses. Beyond getting home, to him, there was little specified on her agenda for the evening, and that much was already accomplished. It was Chuck's show, from here, as planning on two continents in one day was rarely wise.
She is never far from him. In the car, she reaches over to lay her hand on his thigh while he drives. Out of the way, of course, of the space he'd need for shifting. It is warm and heavy there, but a constant reminder that she is flesh and bone, no longer just a voice on the other end of his mobile. Curry is fine. Whatever he'd had in mind was fine. Emily wasn't entirely sure she was hungry, but she hadn't eaten for most of the day. She closed her eyes while he ran in to get the take away and only just remembered not to fall asleep.
Once they were back at Chuck's and her case had been stashed somewhere out of the way, Emily found her way to the shower with only one (or two [or three]) lightly teasing intimations about being disappointed that he wasn't joining her. The invitation, however veiled, was genuine. And the bathroom door was left slightly ajar in case he decided to take her up on it.
If not... then she'd eventually emerged, wrapped in a soft towel and seeking her case (to find something comfortable to wear [because she hadn't thought to bring her pyjamas to the bathroom with her] oh yes, that was an accident, was it? [entirely]).
[Carmichael] Chuck is not oblivious, nor is he anything other than a red blooded American male - intimations that perhaps he should join her end up with a bag of food cooling on the table as he does just that, clothes dropping to the floor on the way. Of course he joins her, and soaps her back, and rubs her shoulders (and kisses her neck, and nibbles her ear . . .), and all those lovely things that people do when they shower together.
He didn't need the second or third suggestions.
There, amongst falling water and steam, he holds her closer than he'd been able to at the airport, feels her bare against him for the first time in [too long] weeks, and it is good. He doesn't press, though, doesn't rush; he's no trouble with taking charge if and when it comes to it, but this? This is her show.
[Littleton] This was not a planned thing. Not something she had dreamed up on the plane flight home, no machination, no manipulation. It was something that fell from her head to her tongue without thinking, without being censored or planned out in any way. It was simpler, in so many ways, than any of the other ways she could have thought to get back in touch with him, with this City, with the life she was piecing together here.
There was steam and warm water, and also hands, and also tongues and mouths, seeking fingertips and the slide of skin against skin. No agenda. Hands went where the willed, small affections were returned (with interest), building on one another. His heartbeat, hers, long locks that clung to damp skin like dark stripes, welts.
At some point, she kissed him. Long and deep and seekingly, like he had kissed her at the airport -- but with no one looking and nothing between them but steam and water. Her foot smoothed along the outside edge of his calf, testing, seeking. Her hands glided down his sides, came to rest at his hips.
It was not Emily's show. She had no script or plan. They were utterly and completely off book, but there together.
[Carmichael] This was not a planned thing. Chuck had been fully intending to allow her to shower and then eat and snuggle on the couch with a movie or video game or even just music, but this? Well, these things happen. They've been apart for a week, and at the start of a new sort of relationship for both of them. Chuck's never been just seeing someone, and can count on one hand the girlfriends (and not!girlfriends) he's had since he was old enough to realize that girls weren't just boys without penises. In some ways, he's more experienced than Emily.
In other ways, he's significantly less so.
He finds hands on his hips and she finds him erect against her where he'd been politely keeping it to himself until then. He finds hands on his hips and then finds himself lifting her so that her legs can wrap around him, finds himself leaning forward so that a hand can rest against the wall for balance, so that there's support for her back, should it be needed. And he pauses there - this is hardly taking it slow, but oh, there aren't words for how much he wants to press forward, how much he's enjoying this.
"Now, sweetest, would be the time to say no if you want to."
But then he's kissing her again - her earlobe, her neck, the hollow of her throat - and being terribly (wonderfully) distracting. He's good at that when he wants to be, when he hasn't spent several hours putting everything he is into hacking some mega corporation and not smacking the crap out of an irritating Cultist. And he wants to be sure she's okay this time. No more guilt if he can help it, no more weirdness between them.
[Littleton] There is the smooth skin of her thighs against (around) his skin and the water that falls down around him. There's the quickening and shallowing of her breath, the way her head tips back as his mouth finds purchase on her neck (tips away [offers more]) there is a softly pleading, pleasant sound rolling at the back of her throat and welling up (almost a moan). There is no shame, and there is no guilt, and there is no No.
It is not taking things slow, and it is a terribly blurred boundary, but these are the ways that people fall into each other, fall against each other, fall together with one another. This is how fingernails drag across shoulderblades, backs arch and muscles quaver in anticipation, in arousal, in impatience.
This is a hoarse whipser when he pauses, waits so near to her that she can imagine him gliding across that boundary, and asks her if she wants to say no. It is a sound that is amplified by the tile and bare floors, the grows into a plaintive note: Please...
Then, soon, it will be a ragged sigh, her body tightening around his (in more ways that one) and the slow climb toward a wordless, boundless release.
[Carmichael] Oh, yes. Soon, there is that, and coming together still closer, in more ways than one. There's the slipslide of bodies, there's wet friction, and time is taken - slow in this, if not in getting to here - until, by the time they're done, the water is cooling around them as he kisses over her. There's quick work made of the rest of the washing, and then helping her out and wrapping a towel (and his arms) around her. The embrace is brief this time (and now that she knows, now that she's seeing him fully naked, she can see the latest marks from insulin injections across his abdomen if she looks there) so that he, too, can dry off and get into something warm and comfortable.
That done, there's seeing to food, to getting them both fed, to testing his sugar and taking the appropriate steps. And there's cuddling, of course, and fingers twining, and arms wrapping around her, holding her [home].
"I'm glad you had a good time, and that everything was alright. I'm more glad, though, that you're back."
It's simple, this kind of talk - effortless how he makes home with his arms, his presence.
[Littleton] That done, there is very little Emily cares about for the rest of the evening beyond being withing arm's reach of him at all times. Being close and being affectionate in dozens of small wordless ways. It is not something he has known in her before, but it is as unencumbered and unfeigned as the warmth of his embrace, of the tease and touch of tangled (twined) fingers.
Chuck insists on dinner (he's a stickler for taking care of her, Emily has already noticed), and she acquiesces, thinking herself unhungry. It's only after the first few bites that she rediscovers her appetite and tucks in a bit more intently.
There's cuddling, yes. It is insisted upon, initiated by them both at intervals. And if that cuddling leads back to kissing (more sedate, a little less hungry), there is no one to blame. And if that kissing leads back to...
"I am very glad to be back."
... homecoming and falling into one another, then it is, perhaps, the night for such things.
"I missed you," she says, again, "But I am thoroughly enjoying coming home to you."
[Carmichael] Chuck insists on dinner and is a stickler of taking care of himself as well as her; getting sick at intervals when it's completely preventable doesn't make sense, and so he makes sure that he doesn't. After dinner - during which they sit beside each other rather than across, and share little kisses and touches throughout - it's to the couch, where something mindless and easily ignored is turned on. By now (since he saw her coming through the gate) there's little Chuck wants to pay attention to more than Emily.
When they dressed, he put on a gray t-shirt with Harvard and its logo distressed in red, and red plaid flannel pants that say Harvard down one leg - he's nothing if not loyal to his alma mater - and a Harvard fleece throw blanket is pulled over them in deference to the not-quite-chill outside, and how low he keeps the heat in, though it's hardly uncomfortable. Those are simply excuses, of course, for the coziness of kissing one's not!girlfriend under a blanket, and allowing one's hands to roam because what they do unseen is obviously unbidden.
Obviously.
"I'm certainly enjoying being come home to, I admit. I think, though, that trips away should be shorter in the future, if at all possible. Because I missed you too. Terribly so, in fact."
[Littleton] What passes for pyjamas with Emily was slightly more difficult to figure out than Chuck's Harvard sweats. Most of what's in her case needs to be laundered, but there (remarkably at the bottom, though she does know better) was just one pair of soft cotton yoga pants and a tank top that were clean and tucked away for just this eventuality. There's a light cardigan she could throw on, but with Chuck more than happy to loan Emily a bit of his warmth... additional clothing is not advisable.
So there's not much between those roaming hands and bare skin, and not much in the way of complicated underthings to navigate. There's something mindless on tv, which pretends to grab her attention whenever she needs a thing to focus on, to give herself the illusion of not being entirely distracted by the Virtual Adept who may or may not be her boyfriend.
Feigning non-distraction didn't keep her breath from catching in her chest, or her hand from tightening (gently) wherever it had purchase on him when...
Obviously.
"My domestic trips are usually only a weekend or so," she offers, trying valiantly to keep her tone level. (Not. Distracted.) And her hands to herself. (Not. Distracting.) "It's the international ones that are longer..."
There's a smile, warm and welcoming, now. "... so you'll just have to tag along for those." A quirked eyebrow. Testing. Teasing. And a not so politely roaming hand that suggests if he did, they might have opportunities to do this in strange new places.
[Carmichael] "I suppose I will, when I can. I've been working on a passport, just in case - you know, for that consulting stuff, in case you really do need a ride along."
This is more complicated than she knows, for him, but he doesn't say. In some ways, it's also simpler . . . but he doesn't say that, either. He simply continues the slow exploration of her body (under the blanket, of course), and the teasing that goes along with it. Oh, no, not distracted or distracting, o treacherous body, o lying form. There's a lean in to kiss her nose, to rest his forehead against hers, and that position is held for a long moment.
"Are you going to laugh at me if I admit to never having been on a plane?"
[Littleton] Under the blanket. Where she cannot see his hand. Where the only visual cues she gets are in the way the covering shifts to allow his arm to reposition -- large scale hints without any finer resolution. Where she is left to trust the nerves that ride along her skin, that dance and crackle with intimations of where his fingertips are now. And now. And... now. The way they are at once patterned and unpredictable.
"That's, usually... um," her train of thought derails. Likely as his fingers find the places where her shirt has rucked up away from her hip, baring a small patch of sensitive flesh that prompts the most delicious sounds (held back, still [only just]).
He rests his forehead against hers and Emily closes her eyes. Lets go of the tension building between them, lets her guard down to be warm and unveiled with him -- to be prey to whatever comes, unbidden, if his hands fail to still in observation of that quiet moment, be they moans, or small gasps, or words that tumble out of her thoughtless and sincere.
She has not been like this for (with) anyone in quite some time. Physically, yes, but even then always somewhat reserved, somewhat kept separate. But this, the warmth and safety, surety, comfort and companionship threaded through with deeper intimacies and shared skin? It has been longer than she cares to (can) remember.
"No, I won't laugh." A pause. She's willing thoughts to coalesce into firmer things: words. "But I will plan our itineraries, in that case."
(Hah! See! I made it through a sentence. A complete thought at that.)
[Carmichael] "And I'll be pleased to let you," he says, and there's no more talking for a bit as lips find lips, and hands resume their roaming - a light pinch here, a tickle there, a stroke, just so. It's taunting, this, challenging, daring - and it's not that he doesn't want to talk and cuddle, honestly. It's that he's been keeping his hands to himself (literally, sometimes) for a week, and now he doesn't have to. She's happy to be here, with him.
Words are over rated. Trips will come later, eventually - this is now, and they're both here, and haven't been for too long. So much can be communicated in a touch; in some ways, it's more than can be in words.
I missed you.
I'm glad you're home.
Stay with me [mine] for a while.
Goodness only knows how long that goes on; the clock says, but no one's looking. They're 'making out' like college kids, and it's fun, and comfortable. There are no demands, but desire is clear, sensed in touch, in taste, in smell.
"Should we . . ." Yes, those wretched words. "Um. Should we turn off the TV?"
[Littleton] In the past, Emily had made a rule of keeping to herself when the jet lag and long days had pushed her past the point of being carefully inhibited. There were blessed few she let see her when her guard was down, let in to the carefully kept places. Tonight there was no heading home to an empty apartment and weathering a naked soul alone. Instead she was here, tangled up in Chuck and his Harvard blanket.
There's no distance if he catches her eyes tonight, no way to hide if he chooses to look in. It's a little like being tipsy, light-headed, save that she chose to be here when she was still in a right-minded moment. She'd known, even if he hadn't, what this might be like.
Nuzzling his nose with hers. Kissing him just to kiss him, without the need (at first) to take it any further (again) than that. Touching just to touch, then touching to feel, then touching to seek, to name, to know.
I missed you.
So this is home?
Please, let me stay. Just for awhile.
They have been careful, so far, in not naming their relationship. But the secrets their mouths and bodies tell one another leave little to be mistaken. I've missed you, they say. You're home, they reassure, assert. It will be harder, be assured, to go back to being just this, or just that, or not-whatever, after tonight.
"Chuck, I --" And for a moment, it is a much bigger thought that threatens to slip between her teeth. This is pulled away, reclaimed, but only just. Only just. "... don't really care about the TV," comes the save, in which not a single word begins with the treacherous consonant, and it's lightening but a little laugh.
Which segues to a quieter space. And she is incautious enough to let her eyes meet his. Emily cannot look away. There, her breath is caught in her chest and there is fondess and affection and something deeper (something far deeper) in her expression.
I think I ...
I just might...
I ... like you.
Um. A... lot?
Oh, Chuck, do be gentle. For she has not said that word -- for all she calls him love and lovely and such sweet things -- and she has not come home to anyone, found home in any one, in longer than she can remember.
These damnable unguarded places. It would be better to go to sleep and be done with it. If he doesn't react, she can pretend he didn't notice. But if he sweeps her up in his gentleness, if he loves her too, then Emily is quite succinctly doomed.
Doomed.
Damn you, jet lag.
[Carmichael] "Oh, sweetheart," is all he says, and his hands still, briefly, then move so that his arms can encircle her, so that he can draw her into her lap and hold her close, cover her face with kisses. She doesn't care about the TV, and he'd been asking something else entirely, but that's forgotten with that look, the things said but not voiced. There is desire, certainly, but not the pressing need of earlier, and this? Well, it calls for softness, for tenderness [for a little of that human touch], and Chuck's good at providing that. He nuzzles close, holds her, hugs her --
She needed this. He did too.
-- and murmurs, soft, "I love you too."
It surprises him, a bit, when he says it - he'd missed her, certainly, and gaming, and talking while she cooked, and laughing, but it hadn't occurred to him that this might mean anything deeper than seeing each other, anything more than friendship and. He hadn't thought it would come so soon - a few months of friendship, a few weeks of hanging out more intently, with more purpose, and a week apart. Apparently, that changes everything.
But he is gentle, and mostly, he's Chuck - amiable and affable, yes. Friend, yes - first, in fact. Anything else is an added bonus, and makes him a happily surprised geekboy.
[Carmichael] [fade into cuddling niceness!]
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