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 Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2015 9:08 am
"Then come over," he responded simply. The finger pressed against his hip bothered him not at all.
The foot to hip caught his attention further, but he offered no resistance in scooting over. A hand steadied him against the countertop during the move. Fingernails danced across his obliques in typical Porsha fashion, triggering reflexive gooseflesh that peppered down his upper arms and sides. One hand rested on the direct outside of her thigh, and the other lacked position without hemming Porsha in against the counter. Something of her motions spoke too intimately to him, so he tried not to engage further - there would be little point.
Shale did not make eye contact. Instead, he diverted gaze toward the empty skillet and remained at a quarter-turn away from her to omit full enclosure. He only shrugged to her compliment. "It's not a problem." Cooking involved active engagement, which prevented Shale from isolation into moments like these that felt both wanting and incredibly awkward. As a naturally solitary individual, he found no prior engagement of interest beyond one backfired attempt. Since then, he considered himself beyond intimacy insofar as an abject need for it - his experiences yielded alternatives for the times where he required connection. But for Porsha to invite such feelings now?
Shale found it quite hard to refuse.
Still, he intended for a valiant effort against it. The Negaverse found no favors in entangling himself with his superior.
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Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2015 7:03 pm
Painted lips ticked up in the corners at that simple reply, heel sliding down to the bend of his knee once he'd stepped closer. The other followed, a gentle deterrent to keep him close to her as fingers slid in soft, teasing lines over tanned skin. Up, following his sternum, and then out across his shoulders. She could feel the goosebumps beneath her nails, the way his skin came alive at her touch. He wasn't looking at her. That wasn't strange in and of itself, often times her affections came when his attention was elsewhere, but there was no project now to keep him occupied. Nothing to distract him from the pretty girl sitting on the counter in front of him. And she noticed the way he avoided her gave, the slight tension she felt in the muscles of his shoulders that hadn't been there when she'd finished massaging them. Her smile slipped, expression melting from salacious to something far more thoughtful. "Shale." The nail of one thumb scrapped along his collarbone before her hand lifted, coming up to touch his chin and cheek. "Look at me." She gave a count of five, letting him do as she bid on his own before using that soft touch to turn him to face her herself. As she did so she sat up straighter, sliding her other hand along the side of his neck to rest at the nape beneath the thick fall of his ponytail. Po liked his hair, how thick it was. She missed the tickle of it against her cheeks. The thick sections carefully tucked between her fingers as she drew it back into thick braids. On hum, the caress along his check drifted lower, the tip of her finger tucking beneath his chin, and now she wouldn't give him the choice to act first. Now she beckoned him closer, soft, insistent, as she tipped her head up to him.
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2015 10:04 am
Taking her cue a command, Shale looked to Porsha for an answer, a followup, for some kind of understanding. None came - only further touchers that raised their own wants. The firmness behind her touch to chin suggested that she intended he stay put, and as he did so, she leaned toward him.
But she strayed much too close, and Shale pressed a hand to her sternum to maintain some distance between them. Intuition suggested ulterior motives. "Porsha." His voice remained soft from proximity, but stern.
The idle braiding reminded him much too keenly of his brother, which tore his thoughts into directions he wanted to abstain from for the few hours he spent here. Continually his mind drew back to them, all the while losing taste for the present moment. And, perhaps most worrisome to him, Shale feared losing his indifference to emotional response if he engaged in the acts that most took for granted. He knew the fate of Tantalus and his fiancé, and sought no interest in repeating their nearly fatal encounters. He knew how Chariklo's girlfriend became the bait to draw her out in the attempt to murder the Mirror senshi.
And he knew that flirtation, infatuation, love and all their manipulative scions bred trouble that he never wanted to taste.
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Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2015 5:24 pm
Fingertips on her chest and the sound of her name soft in her ears. Porsha sighed, a mingled mix of disappointment and mounting frustration, and her head lowered, gaze falling away so he didn't see the flicker of emotion that likely graced soft features. She couldn't have said what he might have seen, she didn't know herself how she felt, except perhaps tired. Her fingers loosened on his chin and lowered with the soft stroke against tanned skin, falling to rest lightly on his chest where her thumb moved in an gentle brush along the sweep of his collar bone. For a moment the girl stayed like that, not pushing against his fingers, but not sitting back, nor lowering her legs either. It placed them in a bit of a stalemate, but there was a certain unwillingness that lingered in regards to letting him go. She'd already let him move out of her apartment, and that was a choice--if it was a choice. How did you argue against the orders of a General-King?--Porsha still regretted, although how was she to know his absence would leave such a notable void? It shouldn't have come as a surprise. She had a knack for getting attached to things she couldn't keep. Though perhaps this was different. If Shale couldn't come home to her, she'd go to him, and she'd take back some of what she had lost. And right now, she'd take as well. Hand on his, she drew it away from her chest with a gentle tug, and as she did she leaned in, quicker this time, to lay a light kiss on his mouth. Chaste, but most standards, it lasted no more than a couple of seconds before she was leaning back once more. Smiling mildly.
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Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2015 11:44 pm
She ignored the hint provided nonverbally. Instead she approached once more and offered him no choice but to kiss her, which was received poorly - the hand that shoved back against her chest did so much more fiercely, and he forcibly pried himself from her grasp. He shot her a reproachful glance, which he expected was all the admonishing she needed, before parting from her entirely. Did she not understand the importance in lack of empathy in this war? Did she want to ruin his careful separation from others that allowed him to make calculated decisions? It seemed so.
"This isn't a game." The rage had not yet penetrated his voice. It quaked beneath his muscles, though, and he felt it in his heart when he turned from her. He retreated to the counter area where he stole his pants from the countertop and proceeded to don them once more, dealing with their usual constriction and irritation in order to leave the apartment. He found it quite clear that Porsha intended for this to be no simple reacquaintance, and that irked him all the more.
How could she stoop to ulterior motives here? How long had this been the case?
He thought, briefly, about asking Porsha to inflict such tactics on his brother - to see if he might change his story under the duress of intimacy. He considered reminding her that it's a tactic commonly effective against enemies. But alternatively, it reminded him of the touches that became a little much for the hunter, that drove him to reassert his self-control. But even as he did so, his instincts rebelled so much further.
Social custom dictated that he say he should go, or that he had some other pressing appointment that demanded his attention, but such a tactic fell short when they both knew the exact reason for his leaving. Instead, he offered no excuse for it- he simply approached the door with intention to leave her behind in this empty apartment.
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Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 5:37 pm
What had been meant a soft brush of lips was met with a physical shove. Porsha startled as he pushed her back, eyes widening in shock as he shot her a reproachful look, all but growling down at her and drew back. All of it met with a baffled c**k of her head, brows furrowing, puzzled and irritated. He was reaching for his pants as she slipped off the counter, arms folding across her chest and weight shifting to rest on one curved hip. Silent as he pulled them on again, at least until he had turned to head for the door without so much as a word of goodbye. "Shale." Firm now, her own tone hardening as she leveled a cool look in his direction. Patient and impatient all at once. Angry at the initial rejection. Angry with his response to what had been meant as nothing more then a show affection. Angry at herself for not realizing he wouldn't understand the difference. She didn't wait to see if he stopped or not, but simply continued talking. "Not every brush a lips carries an intimate meaning." She could feel her nails biting into her palms, temper rising, but she bit it back, kept her voice low and level. "Kisses can mean lots of things. That one, wasn't meant to tease you." A small pause as she licked her lips. "Whatever you are to me; friend, lover, subordinate, partner, or equal. You are important to me." Something she reinforced with every soft touch, every stroke of her hand along his arm or proud smile. She had picked him, and he had lived up to every expectation she'd had for him, and surpassed them. Porsha was, by nature, a very tactile individual. She expressed herself by action, as much as words. strickenized I AM THE WORST. GOD WHY DO YOU PUT UP WITH ME?
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Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2015 4:00 pm
Shale hesitated when she spoke, and he refrained from questioning whether that reaction was ingrained by her superiority in the Negaverse or if he simply wanted to hear what she had to say on the matter. Fingers hadn't yet reached for the doorknob when she broached the issue, and he listened impartially. He turned his head to direct his voice more toward her, though he stood opposite enough that he could not yet view her at that angle. "What was it supposed to mean?" If she meant it not as the teasing she so often resorted to, then what did she intend for it?
Why express his importance? Why hold him to any sort of importance? Shale knew solely that she brought him into the Negaverse - handpicked him, as she so often crooned. And perhaps that was correct, that she didn't simply run across him in the midst of the woods and decide that he may make a fine Negaverse agent, but deliberately evaluated his skills and abilities. He could not deny her that. But to impart a soldier with a sense of importance - what was the benefit in that? He knew his place as a cog, and yet here he found it challenged against a greater prospect. What was he to do with that?
"I don't like ambiguity." This, he expected, Porsha knew perfectly. And yet, she still resorted to actions and phrases that left him guessing - that left him frustrated and confused. Had she forgotten, in such a short span of time?
Or had they grown apart so quickly? Shale doubted it. He doubted that any wedge of space grew between them. But there remained a certain ambience to their interactions that set the hunter ill at ease.
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Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2015 4:39 pm
Relief when he stopped, it softened her voice, let tightly curled hands loosen at her sides as he turned his head enough to speak over his shoulder towards her. "I know." She did know, but he picked things up so quickly, she often assumed he would just know what she meant. The puzzled, questioning glances came so rarely these days, she had to explain less and less. Her fault, her assumptions. One of her nails had sliced into the palm of her hand. She looked down at it, rubbing at the little crescent shaped cut with the thumb of her opposite hand as she crossed the space between them so she could lean her back against the wall beside the side. "The kiss was an apology, for pushing your limits." Silver eyes flicked upward, resting on his face. "But it was also..." Here she paused, brows furrowing slightly as she thought how best to explain it. "Affection, in the broad sense of the word. A show of affection devoid of ulterior motives." In that moment. "I care about you. You're more than just a soldier to me." Once upon a time, maybe, but they'd lived together for months, shared a bed, shared meals, shared their days.
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Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2015 1:29 am
Shale did not answer for some time.
Porsha explained her reasoning. She spared no counterargument, honored no innate desire to justify herself beyond what simply was.
"I accept that," Shale conceded at last. "I'll be by again in a few days." He never understood the latent need for company that most exhibited, but he accommodated it regardless. And with Porsha, doing so did not appear as much a chore as he experienced with others nearing stranger status - Porsha's company was agreeable, even if her hands wandered in ways that tested his self-discipline.
"Take care, Porsha." He reached for the door handle once more and showed himself out of the apartment. It felt unfamiliar, somehow, with how he left the place. The door shut behind him, and he still had the key to lock it. Sometimes it felt like a normal day of leaving for work. But currently, it felt miles from that experience.
He couldn't explain it, but he didn't try to either.
Instead, Shale left for his current residence, one that felt much more like a temporary campground. His residence, much less a livingspace.
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