Tabitha & Vanessa | District X | Sunday Afternoon

[x-plosive.livejournal.com]

Following her continued restlessness, Tabitha finds herself in District X. Vanessa finds Tabitha.



It was Sunday and she was more restless than ever. The inability to hold still made her jump into Baby and drive to a Park and Ride so she could take the train into the city. She wasn't sure what drew her to District X, but she found herself not far from where she'd heard the X Factor offices were.

Really, she knew better than to wander aimlessly in this kind of neighborhood. Her teen self would have robbed her adult self blind.

Sunday was technically a day off normally, but Vanessa had gotten to know the people in District X and made a habit of checking in on them. She had been in the middle of hearing about some kid trying to steal a truly horrific erotica novel when she spotted a lost looking blonde on the street that she recognized instantly. After making apologies for running out on the shop owner, Vanessa headed out the door. She had more than a half foot of height on Tabitha so catching up was quick work.

Normally she would have slipped an arm around the woman to startle her, but Tabitha was an X-Man which meant she had enough training to break Vanessa's nose if not worse and having to block hits or dodge them really would have ruined the mood. Instead she stayed a half-step behind her and a little to the side. "Mm...so they do let the librarian out of the stacks," Vanessa purred in a low voice. "How lucky for me."

She almost didn't recognize the voice, altered as it was. It struck a nerve in her lower back and she stopped breathing for a moment. "Vanessa?" She tilted her head in surprise. "Didn't figure I'd see you here on a weekend. How are you?" she asked politely. She wasn't sure how to react, given the journal flirting versus the last time they'd spoken in person.

Vanessa pointed toward a corner up ahead on the other side of the street. "I live and work a block that way." A small, smirking half-smile curled a corner of her mouth upward. "You can figure on seeing me here any day of the week. The question is what brings the naughty librarian to my doorstep?" An eyebrow arched. "And did you come with a bow hidden under there for me to peel off of you?" Their last actual, live and in person interaction had been a bit harsh and unpleasant, but Vanessa had changed a lot since then. She was also too busy flirting with nearly every pretty girl she ran into to care overmuch about past interaction.

Tabitha's lips parted in mock outrage at the "naughty librarian" crack. "Good grief, are there rumors about my beer-flavored nipples going around or what?" Her eyebrows pressed close together. "The sudden attention is turning my head."

The eyebrow inched higher up. "Beer-flavored nipples always turn mine. Are they more a lager, an ale or a pilsner?"

"I've never licked my nipples, so the exact brew is purely conjecture. But given the amount of Sam Adams I consumed last time I was out, I'd have to go with lager," she said thoughtfully.

Vanessa was more of an ale girl, herself, but that fact didn't need to be voiced for the moment. "And what brings the lovely lager-nippled librarian out to the seedy, mutie part of the city, then? Please tell me it involves restraints and short, pleaded skirts."

"You're the second person to equate librarian with Catholic school girl this month," Tabs said with a barely stifled grin. She looked down and away with a head shake. "No. Just feeling..." she struggled to find the right word. "Fidgety?"

"No, I'm equating you with being hot in little pleated skirts. You just happen to be a librarian as well." Vanessa gave Tabitha an obvious once over, which she had to work to properly convey with the lack of irises or pupils. "And those short skirts with your fidgety nature? Very handy." A smile slowly spread across her mouth. Sure, she could have pulled out of the flirting, she'd been given the opening for it, but it would let Tabitha off the hook and Vanessa wanted to see how far she had to go in order to make the blonde squirm.

"You do know I wear skirts ninety percent of the time," she pointed out. "Just not in February while outdoors most of the day." She struggled not to look away from Vanessa, but the other woman made her feel... itchy. No, that wasn't the right word.

Tabitha seemed to be having real vocabulary issues that day. Then something possessed her and she asked, "You want to grab lunch?"

"With you?" Now there was a surprise. "Sure." Without at all asking if it was alright, Vanessa draped an arm across the shorter woman's shoulders as they walked. "So, what I'm understanding here is that I should either wait for spring or come see you at the mansion so I can have even more vivid thoughts about what I'd like to do to you while you're in said skirt?"

The contact startled her. She stiffened for a fraction of a second. She hadn't been touched with anything but violence in a very long time. It took her another second to realize that it felt kind of nice.

Tabitha almost melted. "I'm pretty sure you have a standing invitation to the mansion any time you want," she said. "And if you can't find the library, ask for directions." She made an attempt at teasing.

Vanessa smiled at the teasing and inclined her head in a small nod in response. "But have I got a standing invitation to the library? The gym and the pool are always happy to see me, but would the library be equally as...excited?"

Her cheeks heated. "I'm not entirely sure about the excitability of the library," she said. "I do have an idea about the employees inside of it."

"Oh?" Vanessa kept her tone casual and interested as they strolled along. She pulled Tabitha in a bit closer to her body while they walked and looked down at her with what she hoped was an expression that leaned more toward interested than I-want-to-do bad-things-with-you-in-the-stacks. "And what of the excitability of the employees in regards to my possible visitation?"

"The employees feel the library would be greatly benefited by your presence," she said in a very professional voice. "It might be detrimental toward the work accomplished, but the moral improvement would be worth the sacrifice."

"Would it?" It was hard to keep the teasing note out of her voice. Cold weather meant coats and scarves and long sleeved everything, so the exposed part of Tabitha's neck is where a finger began to trace nonsense little swirls. Vanessa made sure her body language made it very clear that Tabitha was the complete focus of her attention. Into the blonde's ear she whispered, "And what is the employee stance on me interrupting the work flow?" Her finger was tracing down under Tabitha's jaw, stopping in the center as if about to either raise the woman's chin or move up to her lip. "Trying to find somewhere quiet and secluded there to fully demonstrate my appreciation of the work being done there to preserve knowledge..."

Tabitha gasped as a riot of emotions shot through her body. She took hold of Vanessa's hand, looked up at the other woman. She hoped her racing pulse and breathlessness didn't show in her speech. "I really don't have much," any, "experience in this kind of thing," she said. "And I can only tell you that I don't know what I'm feeling. I can't even tell when it stops being teasing and turns into something... different."

That stopped the trailing finger pretty quickly. Though Vanessa noted something very important. Tabitha hadn't said stop. She hadn't pulled away. She'd stopped the hand from moving and looked up, but she made no move at escape. There was a small quirk of an eyebrow, but otherwise the metamorph's expression never changed. Voice pitched lower, Vanessa asked, "Do you wish me to stop? And do you wish for it to turn into something different? Answering 'no' to the latter does not necessitate a 'no' to the former, mind you."

She swallowed. "I don't know what I'm doing." She looked around. "And we're in the middle of the sidewalk, in FEBRUARY. If I saw a pair like us fifteen years ago, I would have nipped them blind."

"My left arm is around you," Vanessa pointed out, her voice still that low, inviting purr-like tone she'd been using all the time. "My left arm is around you because I'm right handed and that way I can get to my gun or at least two of my knives. Most of the people in this neighborhood know me. They don't know much history but they know enough to know attacking me wouldn't necessarily be wise and enough people around here really like me and my people that they would tell me who attacked me if anyone was stupid enough." Her head tilted a little and looked out around them, then back at Tabitha.

"And I never asked if you knew what you were doing. I asked if you wanted me to stop or if you wanted it to be more than just teasing. I'm happy to oblige either desire, but if you don't give me boundaries I will assume there are none. Even walking down the sidewalk, the only boundaries I will choose to recognize are those of legality." She licked her lips and raised one eyebrow. "Which means I have very, very little problem with putting your back against a wall, a knee between your legs and pinning you there with my hips so my mouth can get to know yours better right now. So...Miss Smith, what do you want?"

Her knees nearly gave out.

"More," her voice came out in a strangled whisper. "But," and she blushed, adding to the flush induced by Vanessa. "Not here." She couldn't quite catch her breath.

Vanessa managed to not grin, particularly not in the overly smug fashion she thought it might come out. Rather, she tamped down the urge so one corner of her mouth quirked upward in something of a pleased smirk. Left hand wiggling out of what lax grip Tabitha still had on it, Vanessa's finger went back to trailing along the shorter woman's jaw. All that blood rushing up to the surface of her skin was lovely and the metamorph did her best to take a mental snapshot of Tabitha like this. There should have been some sort of medal for this sort of thing.

Whispering into her ear, Vanessa asked, "Should I still take you to lunch, or should I just take you home with me right now?" With the breathless, distracted manner of Tabitha's voice it just didn't seem like the time to take a request for more in terms of a long-term goal.

Nerves, curiosity, and about all the other possible emotions warred. Tabs bit her lip in indecision.

In the end, it was her stomach that prompted the decision. It growled. Loudly. "Food," she said firmly.

Nodding, Vanessa did not let go of the other woman. Her finger trailed down the side of Tabitha's neck, but then the hand fell to hand off the woman's shoulder where it had started originally. "Alright, lovely. Tell me what type you desire and I'll get you there." There was nothing in her voice that suggested a possibility she would not find precisely what the blonde requested, no matter the request.

"Lots of carbs and protiens and won't turn my mouth into Mt. St. Helens." She looked sideways at Vanessa. "And we can talk about curbing my fight or flight impulses."

"I can't find you lots of carbs and proteins anywhere. Name me a cuisine," Vanessa told her with a smile. She wasn't sure what to say about the fight or flight impulses. If she wanted to run that badly Vanessa was of a mind to let her. Ultimately, as much of a flirt and a tease as she was, she definitely wasn't about forcing anyone into just about anything. Unless they were bad people. She had no problem forcing them to stop what they were doing or making them incapable of it.

"How about a cheeseburger? And beer?" She shoved her hands into her pockets, where they would behave themselves. She was really tired of being indecisive, but the fear of making a bad decision had her sticking to food choices.

Vanessa grinned. "How comfortable are you surrounded by tattooed, pierced, leather clad miscreants. Because I could have the ideal bar for you." Vanessa had come to love Zeitgeist, even when she wasn't dragging Jean-Paul there after a fight with someone.
Voice pitched lower, Vanessa promised, "And no one will put a hand on you but me. Or they can lose the hand." She had a tendency toward being protective.

Tabitha nodded along with Vanessa's description. "Sounds like a typical day on the leather brigade, if I can get out without another black eye, I'll consider it a good day." She tilted her head at the other woman. "I..." She thought. "I guess I trust you."

"You could choose to not trust me." Her hand came back up so her finger could trace a lone down Tabitha's neck. "But I think if you were going to decide that then you would have already." Vanessa's eyes traveled down Tabs, pointedly looking at where the two women's bodies nearly met. "And you'd be farther away."

Goose bumps rose along her neck and down the backs of her arms. She found herself leaning into the touch. Her body knew what it wanted, even if her mind was confused. "You're an influence, Ms. Carlysle."

A mildly self-satisfied expression spread across Vanessa's face. She didn't bother to ask if she was a good one or a bad one because she felt that they overlapped too much depending on situation and perspective. "A welcome one?" It was a much more pertinent question.

Tabs bit her lip on a smile. "Yes, I believe so." Her hands twitched in her pockets.

A quick smile appeared and then vanished from Vanessa's lips. She nodded once and turned Tabitha to the right at the corner. "Good to know, mi margarita."


Then they head to Zeitgeist.



Inside Zeitgeist Vanessa had tried to keep Tabitha in a relatively lower traffic area. Part of the reasoning was that food was best enjoyed when it wasn't getting knocked out of your hand by a drunk guy jostling you. The rest of the reasoning was that Tabitha fared pretty well with Vanessa, but Vanessa also obviously pushed the woman's limits. She didn't want to risk someone else easily getting close to violate those boundaries without Vanessa being able to address the situation before it got out of hand.

Currently a guy over by the bar was staring in their direction and Vanessa was fairly sure he wasn't staring at her. He had shimmery green-white skin, sleeve tattoos, visible nipple piercings, a lip piercing and a look like he was already doing dirty things to Tabitha in his mind. But he wasn't coming over yet so Vanessa did nothing about him.

Tabitha moaned in pleasure around a bite of cheeseburger. Her wide eyes took in as much as she could around the bar. It was an amazing place. "You come here a lot?" She asked after she finished her next bite.

"I come here when I want to go to a bar. If that counts as a lot, I'm unsure." She was carefully watching Tabitha's admirer out of the corner of her eye. That was the fun part about not having visible pupils or irises, no one could ever be quite certain where Vanessa was looking. All they ever knew was in which direction she was facing. There was a significant difference between the two.

She watched Vanessa for a few minutes while she ate. She was pretty sure the metamorph hadn't looked in her direction more than once or twice. She laughed to herself. "And Wade calls me paranoid." She took a long drink of her beer, it was pretty good, deserved a little savoring. "Green dude with the nipple rings?" she asked.

An eyebrow raised, but Vanessa didn't move. "I don't like the look of the look he's giving you." Her eyes narrowed at the guy, then she tilted her head. "How did you know where I was looking?"

"Total guess," Tabitha admitted. "He's been looking in our direction every time I've caught sight of him." She cleaned up the corners of her lips with her thumb. "Not one hundred percent tourist gawking. He pinged my street rat instincts. Definitely not a pocket I'd pick." It should bother her, that after all these years she still sized people up as marks.

"He's got a fairly long blade strapped to his left forearm under his shirt. I don't trust him." She shrugged and moved her attention back toward the blonde sitting at the table with her. "Besides, the blade is overkill. Either he's trying to be a badass or he's slightly unhinged."

She eyed Vanessa speculatively while she chewed her food. "I really need to get you to teach me how to see stuff like that," she said. "All I have are instincts, and given my years of yuppie-hood to street rat ratio, I'm more than a little rusty."

"It involved a lot of watching people, much more than most people will sit around for. You need to learn how people walk and move when they aren't armed and pick up the small differences and changes when someone's armed. With him it's the way his sleeve falls and bunches up where it shouldn't. He's used to wearing it because he doesn't pay much attention to it, but he's also not very experienced with using it because he pays too little attention to who is near that arm. It's entirely possible someone could walk right up to him and swipe it before he reacts. That knife is possibly why he looks so cocky, too."

She resisted the urge to turn around and look, that would only encourage him. Instead she relied on her memory. Something snagged her attention. "The guy next to him, he's more dangerous, isn't he? But less likely to be the start of trouble." Maybe her instincts weren't total crap.
Vanessa's eyes slid to the side to evaluate the guy. "That depends on your definition of 'more dangerous.' He evaluates everyone coming in the door and walking past him. His back is to a wall and he can clearly see the entrance and the door out to the patio. It's possible he has a weapon at the small of his back because I don't think there's one anywhere else. Either he's paranoid and twitchy or he has training of some sort. Possibly military. I don't think he'd start trouble, no, but I think he might be the sort of end it very quickly. But most of the people in here are dangerous one way or another. A lot can fight, like the one you're talking about with healing bruises on his knuckles. Or they're dangerous because of their mutations, like you."

And yet she felt far safer here than she had at the Hellfire Club. That may have said something about her. "I like it here," she declared firmly. "The people are awesome, the food is delicious, the beer ain't bad, and the company?" She just grinned.

"The company," Vanessa continued for her, "is terribly attractive, very dangerous and filled with mental images of you gasping for more." She had to do it, she couldn't help it really. Vanessa had laid off the flirting a bit, mostly so Tabitha wouldn't choke on her food, but a reminder was called for. Vanessa grinned and there was something just a little bit dirty and predatory in it. "Glad you like the bar, though. It's my favorite. Freaks are my people."

Tabs did gasp, slightly and silently. That smile made her feel like a gazelle on the Serengetti, but it didn't frighten her. Not this time. Maybe the frequent exposure was giving her an immunity.

Or her recklessness was only encouraged by it. Either way, she was pleased with the result.

And when had she started being attracted to women? She blamed Warren's comment from the waffle place. "You are terribly attractive," she said with surprise.

The surprise didn't escape Vanessa's notice. The metamorph couldn't help but smile at that, amusement plain on her face. "Have you just noticed? I feel terribly under appreciated now, I'll have you know." Head tiling to the side, she looked down Tabitha's body with a slight incline of her head as she did. "My feelings are positively hurt. Are you going to make it up to me?" She was teasing now. Vanessa was still looking for that hard line that the blonde wouldn't cross.

"Well of course I noticed that you were attractive!" Tabs protested. "I just never noticed that I was attracted." Her eyes widened as she realized her mouth had run away without her yet again. She choked. "How's your beer?" she thrust the completely inane question out as if it were a shield.

"You're starting to blush," Vanessa point out her with quite an amused smile on her face. "The beer's good. Only half as lovely as my company, though." It was entirely possible the faint flushing of the other woman's skin was due more to the temperature inside the bar and the beer. Many people flushed when they drank. But she sort of hoped if she pointed it out then it would actually make Tabitha blush. Vanessa was a terrible person.

It was a miracle that she'd gone this long without it, but the blush came back in force. She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes at Vanessa. Perhaps because the other woman's approach had been so much more forward than Wade or Warren, she hadn't had time to think about being embarrassed or other blush-causing emotions. She resisted the urge to fan her face, between the beer and blush, she was feeling a little over heated. She refused to admit to any other causes.

"I think you're trying to make me blush," she accused lightly, volume barely above that of the bar chatter.

Vanessa reached out, a single finger coming to rest under Tabitha's chin. She tilted the other woman's head up and to the side a little before leaning in and brushing her lips very softly over one scarlet cheek. She spoke directly into Tabitha's ear when she said, "Of course I am, you're cute when you blush." The metamorph's finger dropped away from Tabitha's chin and she leaned back into her chair again looking for all the world as if she had done nothing.

She tried, very hard, not to show her shortness of breath. There was no hope for the blush, it wouldn't be going any time soon. She waited until she was sure she could speak clearly. "I think, you may just be completely evil." She kept her lips in a firm line, but couldn't keep the smile from her eyes.

"Evil?" Encouraging would get Tabitha everywhere, including all those places she was scared to think about wanting to go. A finger trailed down the blonde's arm, then dropped to her hip and traced the outside of her thigh to her knee. "I am sweetness and light, love. Positively heavenly. And I promise it'll only be for God that you scream. I know nothing of the Devil."

She couldn't wrap her mind around the thought of screaming. She was kind of mortified at the thought of making any sort of sound. She'd seen porn, that was just weird. She gave Vanessa a very wary sideways glance.

Wary wasn't the sort of reaction Vanessa typically got. Who was wary about being promised they'd be screaming God's name during sex? With an amused, teasing tone Vanessa asked, "What, scared of orgasming too many times in a row or just of sex?"

Tabitha wrapped her hands around her beer as if it would save her. "I-" she broke off, looked away, then back at Vanessa. Could she say it straight out? "I've been assured that I'd fetch a high price in the flesh market due to my unique status." Brilliant. She buried her head in her arms without letting go of her beer.

Vanessa quirked an eyebrow. The flesh market? What the fuck was the flesh market? Was Tabitha talking about human trafficking or prostitution? The metamorph took a long pull from her beer. "You have a secondary mutation that allows you to detach your jaw and no gag reflex?"

Her head shot up. "What? No. No. I'm 'just a virgin, for crying out loud."

Vanessa's eyebrows shot up at that. She was not expecting virginity. Her words, however, came out easily and casually. Her voice did not betray how unexpected that reply had been. "Virginity isn't unique. We all start off with it. I used to know a guy who loved virgins and deflowering them." Mike was dead now, though. "I was hoping for something more interesting."

Tabitha rested her chin on her hand and looked at Vanessa with a self-depreciating smile. "I admit to missing out on block-buster movie status, but how many 29-year-old virgins do you know?"

The metamorph shrugged. "None that I know of, but I'm assuming most of them don't broadcast it so my statistics could be way off." Almost all of Vanessa's flirtatious disposition had vanished. Now she was being casual without any hint of naughty thoughts apparent. She didn't do virgins. It was too much responsibility. If she hadn't chosen to have sex with Sam when she was dating him for that reason then she sure as hell wouldn't choose to deflower Tabitha. Though the competitive part of her did like the idea of being the conqueror of said virginity.

She gave a one-sided shrug. "It's nothing I did on purpose. It's just-" she paused to find the right words. "I've stopped feeling like a terrified kid and started feeling like I'm missing out. So it bugs me."

"You are missing out. Of course, you're missing out on a lot of really terrible sex and especially a lot of awful head. And you're missing out on that awkward period where you're really self-conscious about someone seeing you naked and having their face between your legs. People get over it eventually or go celibate." Vanessa sure as hell knew she would have given up on sex way before she had gotten to good sex if she hadn't been having sex because she had to eat.

"Heh, and yet people keep coming back for more. Through any bad sex or humiliation." She traced random patterns on the moisture on the side of her glass. "Human beings are masochistic."

"They come back for the orgasm. For some women it's only the vain hope of an orgasm, but that's why they come back." A knowing smile curled Vanessa's mouth. "That bittersweet teetering edge between pleasure and oblivion. Because if you find someone who can get you there then all bad sex is worth it. And the quest to obtain that is enough to get people to come back over and over again, with new partners and with no partners and with the same partner who has failed in the past. Mm..." she licked her lips. "But a partner who can give you that will likely keep you even if the rest of the relationship is shit."

Tabitha shook her head with silent laughter. "Well, you're doing an excellent job of talking me out of ever having sex." Dimples dented her cheeks with her grin and she held a hand to her heart. "Should I make a vow of celibacy here and now?"

Vanessa grinned. "Before knowing precisely what you would be giving up?"

She was really having no luck at all figuring out Vanessa. "So are you saying all the frustration and irritation is worth it?"

"I'm saying for some people it is and for some people it isn't. And for some people sex isn't just sex but a lot more than that. And for others it's just physical sensation that feels really good." She shrugged a little. "But the point is you'll never know where you fall on that if you swear it off before you ever have it. You'll never experience how amazing it can be. And you'll never know important it is or isn't for you and feel like you're missing out on something. If you do it and eventually decide you've got no interest then at least your decision is informed. What makes you think you'll ever stop feeling like you're missing out otherwise?"

Her head fell back to the table. "This is giving me a headache." She curled protectively around her beer.

"It's real easy, kitten. If you want to get naughty and naked with someone then do it. If you don't then don't. Real easy." Vanessa was a big fan of physical pleasure even considering her past. She just had no tolerance for bad encounters and tended to think she'd merely walk out on any such terrible attempt at sex if presented with one.

She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "It's not like this is some sort of Japanese game show. I don't have to decide now. And I imagine there's lots of steps before the actual-" She stopped to take a gulp of beer. "Deflowering."

Vanessa raised an eyebrow. "You haven't done...any of the other stuff either?

"A little kissing with a friend, but I wasn't comfortable with the situation," she admitted, paying more attention to her beer than Vanessa. "I knew his ex, it just wasn't.. No."

Wow. That was very virginal. "I have no idea how you got to your age barely even kissing someone. Kissing is fantastic. You're definitely missing out there if nowhere else." Granted, plenty of people were sub-par with kissing, but plenty of people were great kissers as well.

She nodded in agreement. "Kissing was rather awesome. I could do a whole lot more of that."

"You should get on that." Vanessa even nudged her leg with her knee under the table. She wasn't suggesting Tabitha do it with her, though.

The devil on her shoulder prodded her right in the neck. "You busy?"

Look who grew a backbone. Vanessa's head tilted as she considered the blonde. She wasn't interested in anyone's virginity, but her lips... A finger rose and traced the edge of Tabitha's lower lip. She expected the librarian to wilt at the prospect of being taken up on her question. "You have my undivided attention, mi margarita."

She started at the contact, but didn't move away. It took a moment to shore up her courage, but her curiosity defeated her fear of the unknown. Rather dramatically. "Well, you sound like you know what you're talking about. Although it is possible that I've been misreading you all night. If that's the case, no harm, no foul." She forced her voice into a casual tone.

"Mm...possible, but is it likely?" The fingertip continued its path on toward Tabitha's jaw. It came to rest under the other woman's chin while Vanessa continued to consider her. "The question, mi margarita, is not whether or not you have misread me. The question is whether you want me to kiss you for wont of something else to do and I'm here or whether or not you want me to kiss you." Vanessa didn't generally bother kissing people who didn't want her, specifically, to be the one kissing them. She saw it as a waste of time.

Tabitha tilted her head. "I've already said I was attracted to you. It was startling to realize because I've never been attracted to a woman before." She smiled. "Then again, I've rarely noticed attraction before. But when you're attracted to someone, it's not weird to want to kiss them, right?" Something had changed in her. Maybe it was the incident with Porter, her talk with Warren, that Danger room session with Jean-Paul, or all of the above. But she found she really liked it.

A foot hooked around one leg of Tabitha's stool and pulled her closer to Vanessa. Her lone fingertip under the other woman's chin never left. "You did tell me earlier you weren't in favor of me pinning you against a wall in public. Now you're telling me you want me to kiss you in a bar. You can understand why I would want clarification, can't you?" When the blonde's stool was nearly touching Vanessa's she stopped pulling. Her free hand dropped to the other woman's thigh, fingertips dancing in nonsense patterns over the cloth.

Vanessa leaned in closer, close enough that the distance between their lips was minimal, and bit her lower lip as a smile stretched across her mouth. "So what you're saying is you want me and you want me to shut up and kiss you already, yeah?" The finger under Tabitha's chin tilted it upward and Vanessa closed the distance to lay a very light, very gentle kiss on the other woman's lips.

Tabitha sighed into the other woman's lips, eyes half closed with pleasure. She was going to say something, really. "I completely forgot what I was going to say," she said.

Amused, Vanessa laughed quietly. "If it wasn't something like 'Damn, why didn't I do that sooner?' or 'I should've let you pin me against that wall,' then it's entirely irrelevant anyway." Her fingertips were still sketching out patterns on Tabitha's thigh, moving higher and higher until her hand came to the other woman's hip. Palm flattening, her hand stilled there though her thumb trailed back and forth along the cloth keeping her from skin contact.

She shivered under Vanessa's touch. "I will admit, both thoughts have now occurred to me." She wouldn't admit that the time between the street and bar had been desperately needed.

Vanessa's hand inched upward just enough so her thumb could slip up under the edge of the blonde's shirt and trace a line back and forth over her skin just above the waistband of her pants. For nearly a minute Vanessa just watched the other woman, her breathing, where her eyes went, how her posture changed in small ways. She was like an eager kitten wanting to chase but until how to capture and kill, maybe scared she would fail. The metamorph leaned back in, nose brushing up the side of Tabitha's neck and her lips following faintly up to the woman's ear. In a whisper Vanessa asked, "Don't you just wish I'd do it again?"

Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes widened at the feeling of skin-on-skin. She could feel her pulse pounding at the base of her throat. The brush of breath over her ear sent goosebumps down her neck. She tried to say something clever, or even coherent. All she managed was a breathless, "Yes."

The sound of that answer was very satisfying. Nothing said you were doing a good job like the inability to properly breath while speaking. Vanessa smiled for a brief instant before her lips were on Tabitha's neck. As kisses inched their way from up behind the blonde's ear downward, the thumb caressing her skin also inched up little by little. By the time Vanessa's lips met the collar of Tabitha's shirt her hand had migrated up under the woman's shirt and laid demurely on her stomach, fingers wrapping around her side a bit.

Her hands fluttered uncertainly at her sides, fingers twitching to do something. She found herself leaning toward the other woman, but was surprisingly okay with that. Her eyes flicked around the bar nervously, but most of the other patrons seemed to be ignoring them. She turned her full attention back to Vanessa. "Ca-" she swallowed and tried again. "Can I touch you?" she asked.


That was cute. Actually, that was terribly, terribly darling. The inexperienced can be so cute. Vanessa lifted her lips back up to Tabitha's ear to whisper, "Anywhere you want." There were a few people here and there glancing in their direction. Tabitha and Vanessa were both attractive women and the metamorph knew once the lips of attractive women connected people would be stealing glances at them for a myriad of reasons.


She started the most harmless place she could thing, fingers lightly caressing Vanessa's hair. The back of her hand trailed over her upper arm and down to her elbow. She skipped over the forearm, where the other woman was armed, and settled at her side over her shirt. For a moment, she just sat there, absorbing the feeling of Vanessa's warmth.


Tabitha was so incredibly adorable. She had wanted to touch Vanessa and her hand went to her hair and her arm rather than anywhere even at all remotely suggestive. Vanessa's hand, however was happily under the blonde's shirt and her fingers were lazily drawing pictures over Tabitha's skin. Vanessa's lips, however, were busy being much, much more forward as they made their way back up Tabitha's neck. Vanessa stopped with her mouth hovering just a hair's breadth away from the other woman's. She was waiting to see if Tabitha would close that tiny bit of distance or if she would pull away. If she did neither then Vanessa barely had any work to do to initiate the kiss.

She couldn't help herself. Vanessa's lips were right there, so close and inviting. She closed the distance and tried not to make a fool of herself.