drums-on-skulls: .12.21.02.

December 21, 2002

.12.21.02. - silly [rune]

[north jersey, cont'd from previous scene]

(rune)
Rune settles into the passenger seat quietly enough, unfolding her body into a lean, compact sprawl that consumes all the practical space alotted to her. Even though the atmosphere has changed for the better, and even though she does. not. smoke. in her car, it's not that easy to just come down when pissed off, and Rune wishes she had not extinguished her cigarette.

3:20 a.m. That's what the dashboard clock declares, and though the streets are slick and wet with new-fallen snow, the traffic is at least quite light. Most bars have closed, most drunks have crawled off to continue partying at home, most sane people are long since in bed, and even the early morning traffic is thin to non-existant on a (very) early Sunday morning.

After some more aimless driving, she draws in a long, slow breath and lifts her chin faintly. "...where're we going?" Though she is not speaking in a particularly loud voice, the words sound loud to her ears, in the small, quiet space, in the vast, quiet night.

(james)
he's concentrating on the road
both hands on the wheel, and all that
but still his shoulders roll in a shrug
a moment of idle thought
only glancing over once they're stopped at a red light

"Pick out a christmas tree?"

at 3:20 a.m.
mmhmm
it's about now his hands relax the deathgrip on the wheel
brought on by the slick roads and the rolling storm beneath his skin
his tongue hurts from where he was biting it
but lips curl into a breif, yet silly little grin
at 3:20 a.m. - right.

"I don't know.... I just.... needed some air. Or something."

green light James... ease into first

(rune)
For his effort at humor, James receives an amused little snort and a sidelong glance, the first she has bestowed upon him since they climbed into the Beemer. Her hand unfurls and grazes across his hand on the gearshift, the faintest almost-touch and little more. There's an impression of body heat, the cool graze of her nails over his flesh.

"I needed some air, too," she replies, quietly then. Her hand hovers for no more than three seconds, before she folds her arm back to her side. Soon enough, she reaches out to adjust the vents for maximum heatwave blast, then adjusts them again and again and again for maximum per-fidget value, or something. "Thank you, James."

(james)
being a boy from Albany
he's.... almost melting in the car by now
beneath his heavy coat and multiple layers
being a girl from California
(at least recently and for all he knows)
he leaves it on, letting her fidgit and warm
for all the car's production of heat is worth

but there's a nugget of surprise
which affords another glance
before dark eyes dart back to the road

"Welcome."

even if he isn't sure exactly for what
even if he isn't going to ask to clarify

(rune)
And so the miles pass. James is almost melting from the heat, and Rune is barely warm despite the blast of directed and redirected heat from the directed and redirected vents. The careful cruise through the quiet streets passes quietly, and she doesn't even move to switch on the radio to its usual blast.

No. Tonight the music to which she listens, and intently, is the changing rhythm of her breathing - which slows as her temper cools until it almost matches the rhythm of his - and the thrumming purr of the engine, and the night's sounds filtered through the metal and plastic and glass that comprise the Beemer's frame.

Half-an-hour, perhaps more passes thus, until she is at last content with the placement of the heater vents, and drops her hands away from the dash, until she is no longer longing for the cigarette, until she looks at the dashboard clock once more and sees 4:03 in bright, glowing numbers on the little screen.

"You ever just want to go to lover's lane and... neck, or something?" Dark eyes sliding slyly over his reflection in the windshield, finding and meeting his own reflected eyes before she turns and glances at him for the first time since they climbed into the car. "You know, like they do in the movies?" Garou adolescence is so naturally, so necessarily consumed by preparation for and participation in the all-consuming war.

(james)
yet again.... she catches him by surprise
he had been listening to the engine's humming purr
he had been listening to the slow match of rhythmic breathing
he had been listening, deeper, to the steady thump of her pulse
he had been listening, even deeper, to the ebbing thrum of calming Rage
and her surface words...
they startle him back to the outer sounds of the tires on slush

and that's when his gaze is drawn to hers, again
not just in the reflection of the window
but in the hard, physical realm
chancing a glance from the graysnowed asphalt
chancing a glance to the sleek, bundled woman beside him
a brow lifts
the edges of his mouth lift
(it's not that look but it's that grin)

"Yeh, actually.... is it a right or a left at the next light?"

(rune)
"Try a right," she murmurs, flicking a casual gesture (long-fingered hand moving with understated grace) to the streets before them. "...but I don't think it matters."

She catches the rising edge of his grin (that grin) and swallows her own smile, which rises in response, looking away. After all, if one is going to play the game, one might as well play the part, even if that part no longer comes naturally (if it ever did). Imagine her as a sixteen-year-old. Now imagine her as an ordinary sixteen-year-old. The puzzle pieces don't fit together. They must be forced into place, and the resulting image is only an impressionistic - possibly cubist - rendering.

He drives. She leans forward and rises from the hips, peeling off her coat with care and folding it to the floor, for lack of any better place to put it. The car is warm enough by now, and no doubt he will keep her wam, even if the blasting vents are turned off to save drain on the battery and damage to the environment from the constantly burning gasoline. Coat gone, she is left in a fitted sweater and leather pants, the former a creamy off-white, the latter pitch. black.

"I hope you're not just trying to get into my pants," she murmurs, affectedly shy, naturally sly. "My rule is strictly, no hands below the waist on first dates, and I stick to it, too. Ask anyone."

(james)
"I wouldn't know who to ask...."

idly mused through the turn.... right
it's true though
if it's not him?
he doesn't know, he doesn't ask
it was never any of his business

and there's even a soft, thick laugh in the car's building heat
(how much of it is from the vents, now, James)
even if he didn't look at her
he was more than aware of the jacket's peel
and what it revealed beneath

"I can keep my hands above your waist....."

brake, pause, red light
first gear, accelerate, green light
finding some back road
any road
whatever seems close enough to deserted
stop. park. e-brake.
turn. look. focus.

"....anything else I just can't guarantee."

(rune)
"Oh, good," she murmurs, her voice husked and thick, not from the evening's cigarettes, not from the cold, throat-burning air swirling around the car outside, not from the dry heat that spilled from the vents. It's the warm heat between them, the sudden, sharpened knowledge of his gaze upon her, the awareness of how very close they are, and the wicked promise of his words.

He stops, parks and brakes. He turns, looks and focuses, and so he can see the shiver of anticipation that ripples up her spine, he can hear the faint catch in her quickening breath, he can catch the scent of her skin as she twists and rises from her perch into an awkward pose, back curved against the hard-convertible top, feet planting against the sliding coat, knees grazing the forward lip of the bucket seat. He can feel her body heat swelling from the casual graze of her fingertips across his face, and he can taste her skin, as she traces the line of his lip and presses her thumb forward to find the heat of his mouth beneath.

"C'mere, you," she murmurs, free hand grabbing the lapel of his trench and pushing it back, finding the fabric of his shirt beneath and dragging him across the divide until he is settled in the passenger's seat and trapped between her knees before she succumbs to gravity's call and settles herself firmly in his lap. The close quarters make the maneuver awkward as anything, but atheletes that they are, they manage it with something approaching grace tonight: some fluid, predator's grace, stalking, hungry.

"Hands above waist, please," Rune murmurs as she shrugs out of her clinging sweater and tosses it casually aside, finds his hands and settles them over her flesh. Then she leans closer and finds his mouth with her own. The kiss is nothing more than a long, slow tease, threaded with the faint promise of aggression that flares onto when her teeth close over her lower lip. Her eyes flare open, and seek and find his own, scorching and sure. "Good that you're making no promises about anything else," she continues, releasing his lower lip and sliding her hot mouth along the line of his jaw to the hollow beneath his ear. Her tongue presses against the concave curve there, and something like laughter ripples through her body. "because I'm expecting you to fuck me silly, and I would hate to be disappointed."

Posted by james at December 21, 2002 12:00 AM

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