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Charlie at 8:44 PM
Hey, can I ask you a question about Mearcstapa? Feel free to say no!
Wren at 8:59 PM
You can certainly ask but I can't promise I'll be able to answer xD
That's smart. Stay healthy. :heart:
Charlie at 9:00 PM
Do you know if he called the number I gave him? I tried to set him up on a date with this gay summer I know.
Wren at 9:02 PM
If he did, he didn't tell me about it. Did you ask your friend if he called?
Charlie at 9:03 PM
No, I feel like if I told him that I gave someone his number he might implode. He's very nervous.
Wren at 9:04 PM
Um.... so how was he supposed to react when someone he didn't share his # with called him? :thinking:
xD Maybe it's a good thing he didn't call?
Charlie at 9:06 PM
I might be afraid to text people who aren't you?
Wren at 9:06 PM
o.o oh no :<
ok lets take this one step at a time
so dont worry about whether mearcstapa calls or not. we rly shouldnt be playing matchmaker if neither party asked us to
and can i ask whats scary about texting people? :3
Charlie at 9:09 PM
I can't see their emotions. I have to base everything off the words they say and can't tell if they're lying and actually hate me or not
Wren at 9:49 PM
I mean thats true enough but everyone is in the same boat there. You also have time to figure out what you want to say. Doesn't that balance out some?
Charlie at 9:53 PM
But then I get worried that I'm coming off too stiff or they'll think I'm taking too long to respond
Sorry this is all silly
Wren at 9:53 PM
its anxiety love
it is real
even if it's silly the emotions it causes are real to you and worth.talking about
I don't think YOU are silly for discussing it or feeling that way`
Charlie at 9:59 PM
Why are you so nice to me?
Wren at 10:00 PM
Because you deserve nice things. And I try rly hard to be one of yours!
Charlie at 10:16 PM
You tried too hard then. You're too nice for me.
Wren at 10:19 PM
No, I'm not. You're wonderful. You deserve amazing things.
Charlie at 10:31 PM
Aw! That's so nice of you to say!
Wren at 10:31 PM
Its also true :D
are you feeling alright right now?
Charlie at 10:34 PM
Yeah! I'm fine! Please don't worry about me!
Wren at 10:39 PM
:< what's wrong?
Charlie at 10:43 PM
Nothing! Honest!
I mean, it's mostly nothing!
Wren at 10:45 PM
mostly nothing is partly something - talk to me, love?
Charlie at 10:51 PM
No! No! It's fine! It's just that you really deserve better than me!
Wren at 10:58 PM
I don't even think I deserve YOU, Charlie, and I can't think of who could possibly be better. Should I come over? You sound like you need cuddled or you're not gonna believe me.
Charlie at 11:02 PM
You really really don't have to! I'm going to be fine, honest.
Wren at 11:03 PM
It's not about having to, Charlie. It'll never be about having to. I love you. I want to help you be happy.
Charlie at 11:06 PM
I'm going to be happy! I promise. I just feel bad tying you down to a girlfriend who lies like I do
Wren at 11:08 PM
It's okay. You don't mind when I notice. And I'm not tied down, I'm delighted. Can I come see you?
Charlie at 11:09 PM
I'm still dirty from work, so don't rush, okay?
Wren at 11:17 PM
I have never and will never care if you're dirty. Unless I make you that way, and the caring will be in a good way. I'll see you soon, cutie.
Charlie turns the sign on the Doom and Bloom to closed and mops some sweat off of her brow. End of shift florist duties kinda suck. Well, more than kinda. They do suck. She steps out to look at the street and wait for Wren to drive up. She checks her phone and then begins to anxiously chew on her thumb.
Wren gets dropped off in an Uber before long at all. It's entirely possible she called the Uber before she even asked to come over. She's got a little bag with her, and is wearing just normal old jeans and a tee shirt, bunny ears bobbing cheerfully above her head as she steps out, waves bye to the driver, and beams at Charlie. "Hi, cutie."
Charlie is still in her green work smock, which is, like her pants, painted in occasional splotches of dirt. "Hi!" She squeaks, pulling the thumb out of her mouth and deftly pocketing her phone. "Um, hi! I, um, sorry, I didn't have time to get cleaned up and I didn't want to make you wait down here while I was, um, in the shower."
"I can think of some upsides to that decision," Wren chirps, before smiling a little wider and stepping in and wrapping her arms around her soil'd girlfriend. She just squishes in against her, nuzzling close, then leans back, beaming up at Charlie. "Hey. You wanna go upstairs, or grab some food, or?"
"Um." Charlie pauses. She's been caught in a weird anxiety spiral all day and every single option offered feels like it'll lead right into a bottomless pit. "Whatever you think is best, cutie!" she says, sweat still coming down her brow
"Let's go upstairs, then," Wren murmurs, expression softening a touch. "It'll be free of other people. Just us. You can get a shower and we can have some chex mix and a little Mr. Pibb and relax. Okay?"
Charlie gives a brief nod and leads her into the hollow. As they get inside, Charlie lets out a small cough before stammering out, "um, I, uh, getting naked?" She points at the bathroom.
Wren nods. "I mean, you could shower in your clothes, but I thought you'd be happier showering normally. Or- do you want me to help you get naked?" Wren asks, fluttering her lashes prettily and well aware that is almost certainly not what she meant. "I won't see anything if you close the door first, you know."
"Um, I, um. D-do you want to do that?" Charlie asks, completely refusing to look Wren in the eyes. "Because um." She stops there, too flustered to keep going.
Wren blinks, and nods, surprised. "I mean... yeeeees," she draws out. "... but... not if you're not ready. If you're comfortable with it, I'd be happy to. I could shower with you, if it'd feel more natural." Her tone is gentle, quiet, staying still, trying not to spook her.
"I- I don't know, I just, um, just want you to be happy?" Charlie says, her vision blurring. Today was really not her day. A distinctly nauseous expression crosses her face as her left hand begins to tap an erratic rhythm on a shaking leg.
Wren nods, grimacing at that nauseous expression. "Charlie?"
"There's no wrong answer."
She lets that hang in the air a moment, smiling gently. "You can't disappoint me. You can't get things wrong. I'm happy if you take a few minutes to clean up and come back; I'm happy if you want me to come help you do that. If you're feeling sick because you're scared you'll do the wrong thing?" She shakes her head. "You can't. But if the idea of being with me naked is making you feel that way, I really think you should shower alone. And I'll be so much happier knowing you're comfy and clean than seeing you naked and upset. The happy is so much more important than the naked. I promise."
"Alone," Charlie says in a whisper of a voice. She stumbles her way into the bathroom to take a short shower. She comes out a few minutes later with wet hair, back in the same dirty clothes, though without the smock. "I'm sorry," she says, her face contorting with guilt, "I really thought I could do it this time."
Wren beams when she comes back, laughing quietly. "It's okay. I promise. The fact that you couldn't do it means it wasn't time yet and that means that you made the right call! Remember? There's no wrong answer! You did it exactly right." She pats the couch next to her. "Come sit with me. I want to brush your hair so you forget all about how worried you are."
Charlie lets out a sigh and flops on the couch next to her. "I'm just really angry at me right now. I wish I could feel only one way and not both at the same time." She lays out so her hair is in brushing range before asking, "um, should I do the thing where other changelings can see my mask? Because, um, I don't want you to, um, hit my halo bits at all?"
"Pleasedon't." Wren murmurs. It's quick and small and brittle. "I- get wanting to be free of one feeling or the other. It's not fair being caught between both. I wish you weren't. It'd be easier. You'd be happier. But I'm gonna do everything I can to help you be happy and make things easy until they're both. I- don't... want you to hide from me. Even just like that. I don't... need to see your Mask. I just need you. Here in my lap. I'll be careful. Slow, but careful. Okay..?" She curls her arms around Charlie, hands looped past each other across her collarbone.
"Are, um, are you okay?" Charlie asks, tilting her head best she can to look behind her without upsetting the cuddle arrangement. "We, um, we don't have to talk if you don't want to, but, um, it seems like I might have said something that accidentally hurt you?"
Wren nods... slowly. "I'm alright, just- I... it's hard for me to handle people hiding from me. I know it's not what you meant, but it's one thing when it's for a job, or something, but when someone specifically wants to hide who they are from me, it's- it hurts. I can tell, and it stings, and it doesn't stop until they stop. And I know it's not what you meant, but it's how it feels. I... don't... want anything between us that doesn't have to be there." She fishes a hairbrush from her little bag and starts, slowly, painstakingly, carefully brushing Charlie's hair, taking excessive care to avoid the hooks.
Charlie is in a spot where she can't do many of her usual loving gestures, just from pure physicality, so she settles for petting the outside of Wren's legs. "Hey, no, it's okay," she says, in her best imitation of the voice Wren uses on her in tense moments, "I'm sorry. I'm here now and I'm not doing anything with my mask and I'll never ask again."
The imitation makes Wren laugh, and her cheeks and ears color with that little petting. "It's okay. I know you didn't mean anything by it, you're just trying not to get hurt. Same as me. It's alright." She keeps at her work, careful as can be. She's not super great at it, exactly, but she's careful enough not to hurt poor Charlie. "Tell me about your day?"
"Oh, jeepers, it was really boring," Charlie says, settling in into the head petting. "The most interesting thing that happened was a guy who wouldn't believe me when I told him the tulips he was trying to buy weren't roses. I don't understand how there are people out there who are so convinced that they're right that they don't listen to people who know more than them." She lets out a content sigh. "I love you."
"Well, it might be hell in your work, but it's sure helpful in mine!" chirps Wren, laughing brightly, easily slipping away from her concerns with her girlfriend in her lap. "Just remember that you are right, and be amused at their ridiculousness. And set them up too look as silly as possible once they realize they were wrong. That's what I do!" She flushes hard at the soft, content sigh and the proclamation, and offers gently, "I love you, too. So much, Charlie. You deserve the world."
Charlie presses a tooth against her tongue to keep herself from debating Wren on that last statement. She barely deserved a snack, let alone the world. "How was your day? Any fun James Bond stuff? Defuse any bombs?" she asks, continuing the lazy petting.
"Sadly... nope." She shakes her head. "I've been doing some research. Someone did some shitty stuff to some lovely people and they're gonna be real sorry they did," she murmurs. "Gotta keep us all safe. From everyone. From anyone."
"You don't have to keep everyone safe, you know," Charlie says, turning her petting into a reassuring patting. "It's why we have courts. So no one person has to help everyone."
She then pauses and asks more quietly, "should I be worried?"
"I'm not working alone," she murmurs with a grin. "Don't worry. There's plenty at work. And no. You've got nothing to worry about. Even the people who oughtta be backing this fucker up left them out to dry. We're just gonna take out the trash." She's about done brushing and starting to think about braid possibilities. "I like your touches, by the way. The little pets, the gentle things. They make me really happy."
"That's good because, I like touching you and being touched by you," Charlie says, before realizing the words that came out of her mouth, "I mean, normal touching! Romantic touching. Nope wait! Romantic as in we're romantic romantic not as in married person romantic." She then notices that her head has been resting very near her girlfriend's breasts and adjusts herself to avoid that, furiously blushing. "Sorry."
Wren shifts to let Charlie adjust as she needs to, lowering a hand to cup her cheek, stroking her thumb along the other girl's gorgeous, marble skin. "I don't care what sort of romantic it is, Charlie. I like that you want to be romantic with me. It makes me really happy. I didn't... think I'd want this. A few months back, I'd have said I didn't. But it makes me happy, now. You make me happy, Charlie." She lets her other hand shift with the movements- which, having been at her collarbone, just drifts it closer to Charlie's chest. Not that she points it out or capitalizes.
"You, um, you make me really happy too. I, um, I feel really safe around you in a way that, um, I don't feel much? Like don't get me wrong, I'm still really nervous, but the world doesn't feel like its out to get me." Charlie swivels around to kiss Wren, an awkward movement that almost certainly results in a smooch to the cheekbone. "Um. I just had an idea. And, uh, feel free to say no to this but um..." she trails off before adding in a quiet voice, "want to swear an oath to each other?"
Wren helps, though, and ensures she can twist a little to catch Charlie's kiss, and make it something worth the effort, leaning down to return that kiss, following Charlie and gently easing her lips round Charlie's lower. There's even- briefly- the brush of something warm and smooth and a tiny bit more firm than her lips before she leans back, licking her lips without thinking. "An oath? What sort?" She's curious, but not hesitant.
"Something telling the Wyrd that we're together and we care for each other? Um, something like... I probably shouldn't be saying this out loud, should I?" Charlie grabs her phone and deftly types out, "An oath where we agree to love and care for each other until a given date and then renew it after that", handing the phone over to Wren to show
Wren's big, soft eyes open wide. "Charlie, you- want to swear an oath to love each other?" She ponders that quietly, then murmurs, "Charlie... we shouldn't be swearing oaths to feel any certain way about each other. I'd be happy to promise to care for you and not betray you for a time- I know how that can help to settle anxiety- but if we promise to love each other and then one of us... just... feels differently... that's a disaster. And not necessarily one we can help..." It's notably hard for her to say those things.
"We don't have to do this if you don't want to," Charlie says, though not in her usual deflecting way. This one comes out genuine and soft, without fear. "But if you wanted to swear that we'd care for each other and that we wouldn't strengthen our masks around each other, I'd like the Wyrd to, um, know how I feel."
Wren listens closely, trying to slip her hand into one of Charlie's. "No. I don't want you to swear not to do that around me. I'd prefer you didn't, but it's an important defense mechanism that we might need to use for other reasons. I can handle it if it's for a reason." She looks down into Charlie's eyes. "Oaths are tricky. It doesn't matter what we intend them to mean, what matters is what we say. Like- if I swore to take care of you to the best of my ability and I got tired one day and took a nap and didn't do something that would have helped you, then I'm oathbroken. You see..? But- if you just want to Seal promises to each other, we could do that? It's not nearly so risky. I just- don't want you to be hurt by the Wyrd because I let you make a promise I knew was a bad idea."
The hand is taken, but the eye contact is not. "I, um, I..." Charlie squeezes Wren's hand for strength. "I heard that, um, if people swear an oath though that means that, um, I can get hurt instead of you if you get hurt? And I, um, I really want to do that. If you, um, get shot on the job or something, I want to be able to take the bullet instead. The one good thing I got from my, um, time Over There is my ability to heal stuff?"
Wren shivers, cold shocks running down her spine as Charlie explains. "I- Charlie... I don't want you getting shot, either. I'd rather get shot than have you get shot because I got clumsy. And besides, that's super unlikely. Not only am I mad good at what I do, it's not usually the sort of thing that devolves to gunfights. I'd just run and I'm really good at that. I'll show you sometime. Besides, if we promised that, you know I'd be able to do the same, right? Would you be okay with me taking on hurt you had?"
"I could fix it if I got shot though!" Charlie raises her hands, golden light spilling from her palms. Then Wren suggests the reverse and Charlie puts her hand back to link with her girlfriend's. "Why would you ever want to take a bullet for me? You don't deserve to be hurt because of me!"
Wren squirms and nudges and wriggles until she's got Charlie sitting up with her back against the smaller girl's chest, one of Wren's arms around her middle and the other laced into one of her own. "Because I don't ever want you to be hurt. I would rather be hurt than you. Because every scratch or break or stab I take is a better chance I'll get to see you again."
"Just..." Charlie pauses, her voice coming out small and hoarse, "just don't die. I can heal you as long as you're alive. So don't die on me." She slumps backwards, resting her head next to Wren's. "I really really care about you, you know?"
Wren nods into Charlie's shoulder, tightening the arm around her. "I won't. I'm good at alive."
There's a little squirming, just the arm around her middle, until Wren can set her palm on Charlie's tummy. Just for some contact. "You mean the world to me, too, Charlie. That's what I mean when I say I love you."
"This is, um, a weird thing to say, I think, but, um, I love the way you say my name? Like you say it like its my name and not just a nickname. And I love that. And I love you. And, um, I love being cuddled with you like this." Charlie plants a kiss as close to Wren's mouth as she can get in this arrangement.
"It's not a weird thing to say," Wren says. "I know exactly what you mean. And it is your name as far as I'm concerned. You're Charlie, and you're my wonderful partner- and you're not the only one who adores these cuddles." Wren twists a little, but it is indeed tricky to get a proper kiss, and she whines a little under her breath. "Do you want to turn around? I'd really like a proper kiss."
Charlie nods and spins around, straddling Wren's lap in a way that would cause her to immolate if she knew what it resembled. She goes for a kiss, lingering on it, doing her best to make it enchanting. "You're so beautiful," she mumbles out afterwards, drunk from the feeling.
Wren lets her hand slide round onto Charlie's back, stroking slowly (more up than down, lest Charlie worry about rumpular purity) as she leans up to return the kiss, her other hand up onto Charlie's shoulder, pushing up to meet her girlfriend's lips. When Charlie's the one that lingers, a tiny little delighted noise rises in her throat, and a moment later Charlie feels the brief brush of Wren's tongue, featherlight against her lips.
"You're breathtaking, Charlie. Beautiful and wonderful and-" She nuzzles closer, leaving off the last word or two.
"Golly." Charlie murmurs, dizzy from the kiss compliment combo. "You're all of those things and more. I can't think of a person I'd have rather given my first kiss to. And my second. And my hundredth," she adds with a giggle.
"Would you, um, want to go on a date sometime, um, somewhere casual? Like a place where, um, people can see us together. In public. Being gay."
"Well, hopefully, you're down to sharing a whole lot more than just one hundred kisses, cuz I plan to burn through those, like. Before MAY." Giggling, Wren starts layering rapid, feathering kisses against the nape of Charlie's neck, relentless with the ticklly little flurry of smooches!
"Yes! Absolutely! I'd love to go show you off and be proud of you in public! I'd adore that!"
Charlie lets out an unrestrained laugh, trying to scramble out of kiss range, while still staying in her girlfriend's loving embrace. "I, um, I might need your help with that. Um, in case I, um, start feeling like everyone's watching me," she says, embarrassed but not afraid.
Well, that plan might backfire a little cuz leaning back and staying in range means those kisses just drift downwards. Towards her c... collarbone. She lets up, showing mercy just a moment or two later, anyway."Well, you'd need my help to be on a date in the first place, so. Since I'll already be there, being seen together, I'll just have to bite the bullet and make it a good enough time you don't think about anybody else." Big, soft eyes flutter their lashes up at Charlie.
That gets a big laugh from Charlie. The laugh lasts longer than the joke probably warrants but this is the first time in a while she's felt up to laughing this much. "I love you so much, cutie. You're so good at telling jokes. I can't wait to tell the world how much I love you~"
Wren's ears flush hard, deep color seeping into her ears and cheeks. She hides her face briefly, pushing it against Charlie's shoulder, then looks up, smiling like a dork. "I can't wait to hear it. After we go someplace public, do you maybe want to visit the freehold together? See and be seen and all?"
"All the people there should be, um, good with that, yeah? I feel like, um, most of the freehold members are gay?" Charlie kind of collapses into Wren, desperate to be held. "I'm, um, sorry, I'm starting to get nervous again."
Wren let out a little oof and shifted to support Charlie, pulling her girlfriend in against her tummy as she shifted to support herself against the couch. "Don't be. The only things anyone worth thinking about will be thinking is "gosh, I wish I was as happy as them" and "jeez, that Charlie sure is super gorgeous,"" Wren reassures, taking to stroking Charlie's hair slowly, watching carefully for the wires and hooks. "Everyone'll be super good with that. I think most of the, are just happy for us."
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