Apartment Above Needful Things; Tuesday Late Morning

[totalwildcard]

Harley had spent most of the weekend on the mainland. Not just Baltimore, either - she'd taken the kid out on a little road trip. Yanno, for life lessons! Most of them criminal, of course, but that was sort of how their mentorship worked, so someone else could handle the boring stuff. Anyway, they'd had fun!

So much of it, in fact, that Harley had only landed back on the island late on Monday evening. Technically probably Tuesday? Which meant that after she'd passed out and slept her fill, the day was already well on its way. She rolled groggily out of bed, shambled her way into the living room --

And groaned when she saw the glitter bomb still waiting on the coffee table, and not downstairs attached to the front door ready to explode on Frenchie if he showed up again this week. Whether he'd already shown up or not, Harley was not in a state to go set it up now.

She shuffled around some more, in search of her phone, which she found discarded on the kitchen counter. No calls, no messages apart from Cass informing her she'd ordered breakfast delivery on Harley's account. Harley looked at the phone for a long moment more anyway, tapping her thumb against the side of it in thought. Groggy, still sleepy, not yet caffeinated thought.

And pulled up a number she'd had for a while but never actually texted before.

(Successfully, anyway. There was that time on her birthday.)

You awake yet?

(expecting one but can be open for other stuff as well!)

Comments

[totalwildcard]

"Well, join the fuckin' club," Harley told the coffee. "But, look, I just like it better when you're okay with things. I just like it when you're... okay."

She chewed on her lip for a few seconds.

"And I like it when I can make a difference in that."

[hasaknightjob]

Marc took that in. He needed a moment. Then he reached around her to put his coffee on the table so that he had a free hand to rest on her other side.

"Yeah. Me too."

[totalwildcard]

"Yeah?" Harley murmured.

And took a long sip because that excused hiding her face for a bit.

[hasaknightjob]

"I don't like when you're not good," Marc said.

Poetry. Absolute poetry.

[totalwildcard]

It was apparently still enough for Harley to kiss him, holding the coffee out to one side with an outstretched arm, to avoid any accidental spilling.

Sometimes she was happy with very little. And also sometimes words were hard.

[hasaknightjob]

Kissing Marc could handle. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, kissing her back and maybe showing a little more in the physical gesture than he could with words.

[totalwildcard]

Which maybe drew a little more out of Harley in turn, and not just in how her free arm looped around his neck, and dammit, she really should have followed his lead and set the coffee aside.

Whatever, there was a lot of warmth she was communicating to him. Something in the particular way she relaxed into the kiss like she was surrendering to something.

[hasaknightjob]

That was okay. Marc held her closer, wrapping her up in his arms like a blanket. Like if she was surrendering to something, she was doing it with him watching over her.

[totalwildcard]

Because she was one of his people.

It didn't make the feeling of surrender any less prominent, that was for sure. Harley kissed him more insistently in return. Not necessarily with a lot of heat, just -- just really intense about wanting to melt together into one thing.

If that made sense.

Not all of her wants always did.

[hasaknightjob]

Marc got that. Or at least he thought he did. Actions really did go so much better than words with him, sometimes in both directions.

In this case it felt like her insistence was like a question. A need to know she wasn't putting something out into the void. Which he was happy to answer by holding her and kissing back. Not sexual. Warm. And there.

[totalwildcard]

Warm and there were both exceedingly good things right now. And he wasn't far off in his thinking, either, about what she was after.

The helpless but happy noise from her throat said about as much.

[hasaknightjob]

Well now Marc was warm, there, and smiling. Because she sounded happy. Helpless made Marc hold her tighter. He preferred when she felt safe after all.

[totalwildcard]

Okay but what if feeling safe made her feel more helpless? Harley was weird like that, after all.

But it wasn't helpless in a bad way. More like she had... the room to feel that way? She wasn't going to look at it too closely.

Just kissed him.

[hasaknightjob]

Far as Marc was concerned what mattered was that Harley was where she wanted to be. If that meant feeling safe enough to let herself be helpless, that was fine. He could keep her wrapped up in his arms and kissed as long as she wanted.

And maybe in that there was something about how it mattered that she gave a shit about what he felt too.

[totalwildcard]

The coffee in her hand was really becoming a problem.

But not one enough that Harley would actually bother breaking the kiss for it. No, instead she took her chances with blindly reaching behind her to try and set it on the table.

[hasaknightjob]

Marc sensed what she was trying to do. He went to help. Not by breaking the kiss either. But he ran his hand down her arm to try to take the cup and put it on the table for her.

[totalwildcard]

Harley let him. With a little shiver that was purely just for his hand on her arm. Definitely.

And as soon as her hand was free of the cup, the arm in question was snaking its way around his shoulders, too.

[hasaknightjob]

Once Marc's hand was free he wrapped his arm around her again, holding her nice and close to his chest as they kissed.

[totalwildcard]

Harley was now trying to hold him nice and close in return, too. And, okay, mostly what she was getting were his shoulders, but the thought was there!

She continued to try and melt into him. Like there was nothing better.

[hasaknightjob]

Marc picked up on that melting. He moved one arm lower down so that he had room to rub his other hand up and down on her back. Reminding her he was there and encouraging her to get as comfy as she liked.

[totalwildcard]

A moment or two of that, and Harley ended up giving up on kissing entirely - for right now! - so that she could instead sink a little further against him, her head against his shoulder. It was not super comfortable for all of her, but she was willing to indulge the parts that were comfy like that.

(Some of those parts were not strictly speaking physical.)

[hasaknightjob]

Marc adjusted his hold to let her rest where she needed. Then he moved the hand giving the back rub up to stroke her hair.

"I gotcha."

[totalwildcard]

"Why'd ya stop?" came out in a murmur that had little, if any, note of real objection in it.

Harley'd liked the back rub, but she couldn't exactly claim she disliked getting her hair petted, either.

[hasaknightjob]

"My bad." Marc obligingly moved his hand back down to rub her back.

[totalwildcard]

Harley smiled, which he could neither see nor feel, but maybe he could still hear it in her voice.

"Thank you."

It was such a content little sigh.