giveittoyoursister | 29 Chimera Court, Tuesday Afternoon

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29 Chimera Court, Tuesday Afternoon

Late in the afternoon, shading into the early evening, Vi left herself in Steph's place, a bag of groceries in one arm, beanie-wearing cat draped over her shoulders.

Mostly she'd brought Steph home because Saffron was well and truly Done with her presence for the moment and needed some alone time at the store, but she also wanted to hide the tank she'd made in Sidon's class the other week in with the rest of Steph's clothes for her to find later. Kind of a reverse sneaky theft.

And there was also the part where she was kind of worried about what Steph's fridge looked like after it had been left to it's own devices for a week. The best case scenario was that she wouldn't need to empty it before she put the stuff she'd just bought away.

[For the aforementioned cat wearing a beanie!]

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The good part was that Steph had been planning a grocery run herself last Monday before she'd turned into a cat, so there wasn't too much in the fridge that had gone bad besides about a quarter of a carton of milk and a half eaten apple, possibly the end of a block of cheese.

The bad part was that, while Vi might be otherwise occupied, Steph was putting herself into the awkward position of very determinedly sharpening her claws on her own couch.

Unfortunately for Steph's couch, Vi spent several minutes very occupied with tossing the bad food and putting away anything that could spoil.

She finally noticed what Steph was up to while hiding the tank and vaulted over the counter to try and scoop her up of the couch before she caused too much more damaged. "Whoa, hey, I know that's fun, but you're probably gonna regret that."

Seriously, Vi was the best possible best friend-and-nothing-more-than-that-really.

Steph let out a distraught little wail as she was scooped up, and wriggled in Vi's grasp. She'd been doing some very important work just now!

(The couch was secondhand anyway, and luckily hardy enough to withstand what she'd done to it so far without showing too much wear.)

Vi felt a little terrible about that wail, but not enough to let Steph go back to clawing up the couch. Instead she flopped backwards along the couch, Steph still clutched to her chest.

"C'mon, now, don't be like that," she said, rubbing behind her ears.

Steph whined a little bit and let out a token wriggle of protest, but -- but she was getting cuddled again, and she really liked getting rubbed behind her ears because as cool as she looked with a beanie on, her ears did get a little bit itchy eventually.

So with a noise that couldn't possibly be described as anything but a loud kitty harrumph, she settled down on Vi's chest to oh so magnanimously allow Vi to give her all the attention and cuddles she deserved.

Vi smiled. "So glad you agree," she said, running her other hand down along Steph's back, in slow, even strokes.

There was something extremely soothing and relaxing about lying on a couch giving a kitty stritches, and Vi very quickly started drifting off mentally, automatically keeping up with petting Steph.

And it was very important to make sure Vi got as many soothing and relaxing moments as she could. Even as a cat, Steph seemed to know that instinctively.

She was drifting off herself, eyes half closed and purring, flopping over onto her side in a show of trust.

Vi's eyes slid closed almost of their own accord as she kept on stroking her fingers along Steph's fuzzy little kitty sides. She should probably get up and get some food on, but it wasn't like either of them had to be going anywhere any time soon.

And of course it was very important to not disturb a sleeping kitty, even and especially when said kitty was sleeping on you.

Steph stretched and wriggled around a little, tucking her head up under Vi's chin and reaching out with one foreleg as if trying to hug her.

It was all very comfy and safe-feeling, so if she was no longer a cat any more at some point while all this was happening but neither of them noticed right away that was perfectly understandable, right?

Extremely understandable! Especially since this whole situation was just so generally pleasant that Vi was mostly just assuming that she'd actually fallen asleep and was having a very nice dream.

Yeah, Steph was pretty convinced that she was having a nice dream herself. The soft and affectionate "Thanks, babe," that she murmured in a voice that was husky from a week of disuse wouldn't have slipped out otherwise.

Any second now she might realize that she was about to roll over and fall onto the floor, but Vi's fingers felt so nice against her skin...

Oh, yeah, this was definitely a dream that Vi was having, and she was in no hurry whatsoever to wake up, her hand still lazily running up and down Steph's back.

She traced the thumb of her other hand over Steph's lips, and since it was just a dream, there was nothing stopping her moving to follow it up with her mouth.

Steph wouldn't have stopped her, that was for sure. In fact, she was starting to slide her hand up into Vi's hair and lean in, apparently intent on meeting Vi's lips with her own. It was second nature in these dreams, anyway.

Gravity had other ideas, though, and Steph got jolted rudely back to the non-dream world by the sudden realization that she was about to roll over sideways and fall off of Vi, and subsequently the couch.

Vi felt the shift in Steph's weight and instinctively grabbed at her to try and keep her from going over, snapping back to alertness.

Though not quite full enough alertness to completely grasp what she was well, grasping at.

Under dream circumstances just a few seconds ago, Steph would have been just fine with Vi's, well, grasp.

Actually, under completely awake but less unexpected circumstances she'd have been fine with it too, but right now? Right now she was just startled and disoriented.

"Whoa -- Vi?"

Vi suddenly realised exactly where her hands were and after lingering a second or two too long, they flew away like they were on fire, and Vi attempted to scramble away from Steph with a frantic 'sorry, sorry'.

Which given their current position...well, oops?

The end result of that was, yes, Steph landing on her ass on the floor near the couch, still hastily attempting to reassure Vi. "No, it's okay, it's --

Kind of drafty in here... oh.

"Shit, my clothes," she blurted out, looking around for the clean laundry basket as she attempted to scramble to her feet.

And of course it was across the room, by her bed. Couldn't conveniently be within reach or anything.

Meanwhile Vi was staring at Steph, while trying not to stare at Steph (which had somehow been a lot easier when she'd thought Steph wasn't real), while also trying to simultaneously back as far away from her as possible but also go in towards her to offer her the shirt she was shrugging out of, which she didn't actually want to do.

What she wanted to do was put her hands and mouth right back where they'd been, and then a few other places. Which meant she needed to get out of there. "I...I need to go," she stammered out, half-flinging the shirt in Steph's direction.

Well, now it was Steph's turn to stare and try not to stare at the same time. She at least had the presence of mind to catch the shirt and hold it in front of herself, but that didn't do much to disguise the flash of confusion and hurt in her eyes at the way Vi looked like she needed to be gone.

"You don't have to leave," she objected, her voice cracking a little bit as she backed toward the relative safety of the half-partition separating her sleeping area from the rest of the house. "Just -- just give me a second, okay?"

Vi didn't want to leave, especially not when Steph sounded like that, but she had to. Because she couldn't pretend she didn't want to do anything else right now other than kiss her, that she didn't want to follow her and...no, if Vi thought Steph looked upset already, that was nothing compared to what she'd look like when she realised just how shitty Vi was at being a friend.

"No, I do," she said, feeling for the door handle, guiltily glad Steph's current state of undress would keep her from following. "I'm sorry."

"Vi," Steph began again, almost pleading, because she was starting to feel like she was in the familiar position of watching yet another person walk away from her even when she'd been trying so hard to not let it happen again. "Please don't..."

She could say that none of this had been in her control, that it wasn't her fault about turning into a cat or the timing of when she'd changed back, but...

Her shoulders sagged and she bit her lip, nodding.

"No, it's okay. I get it." Because it was her fault, wasn't it? With her impulsive decision to try and kiss Vi right before she'd turned into a cat, fucking up a perfectly good friendship by trying to bring feelings into things and make everything complicated? They could have just gone on without acknowledging their feelings until they both got over them, but no. Fucking typical of her, really. "I get it if you have to go. And I'm the one who's sorry. I really am."

And Vi almost did stay. Steph looked so...and she'd promised...

But she recognised the feeling when she looked at Steph, the same deep yearning edged with banked anger she'd felt looking at any of the myriad things someone like her wasn't allowed to have. It was poison and she needed to get out of there.

"You didn't do anything wrong," she managed as she slipped out the door.

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29 Chimera Court, Tuesday Afternoon

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