IC Inbox - Entranceway

[directed]

Obviously I'm not here right now, but leave a message and I'll--listen to it. Eventually.

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[directed]

[Peace: that funny little stranger so foreign to Rip, he cannot identity it by name even as he basks in it. Yet it's true enough that he's been granted his measure of the stuff just now, worn out enough by the woman curled against him that the darker streams of his thoughts are kept at bay. The silence after has been sweet rather than suffocating, and Rip has drifted just enough to be startled when Peggy lets out that sharp bark of laughter.

Only briefly: a tension that sparks through his muscles before he relaxes again—curious as to if what he's said is truly so funny.

But she doesn't pull away just then. Oh, the address has gone formal, and that's normal enough. But Peggy's still there, and for a moment Rip does wonder if she might spoil him a bit further by staying for the second week in a row. But the question barely forms before he interjects answer: naturally not. For all their joking, there yet remains a concern that they could indeed end up "spoiled" on each other.

Certainly Rip believes it possible in moments like these.]

I've no doubt of it, Miss Carter. [So he gives reply and turns his head once more, kisses her once more while still afforded the opportunity. He's in no hurry to see her off, even though he won't try and stop her when she goes. Always one to plan ahead, to think things through out to their every potential end: a trait that does him disservice during the times it would be better for Rip to savor the present.

He chides himself for concerning himself too much with that future, no matter how few minutes still last before it comes.]

[mucked]

[ weeks ago, it seems she'd managed to negotiate away what was once a conventional no man's land between them. the negotiations had been unvoiced and incremental -- like much of their arrangement. and where she once would have rolled beside him, satisfied and catching her breath, more and more often she spends this time in a willing tangle. peggy has gone from suffering a post-coital kiss to feeling her heart leap pleasantly into her throat when she realizes (seconds beforehand) when his head turns in pursuit of one. god, is it ever welcome.

peggy's chance, now, to luxuriate momentarily -- lifting her chin into his kiss and meeting it with a subdued warmth that best communicates what's true: she won't be staying, and affectionate gestures like this one make for effective countdowns to her departure. it's not even all that late, really, compared to how far they push the clock on some wednesdays. but the longer she stays, the more she risks.

her body stretches bare against his even as her lips remain in place. as gentle as the kiss is, there still comes the inevitable threshold where breath overcomes desire. it may peggy plants a palm against pillows while she peels herself, slowly but not reluctantly, from her lover's grasp. ]

Your needle's still running. [ she says of the record player, positioned across the room. the record had run out ages ago -- and peggy volunteering to go spare the needle is something of an oft-used excuse to get up and gather her things and beat her graceful retreat. but before she sits up, she scrubs her fingers tenderly through his hair. brushes the back of her knuckles against his cheek. ]

[directed]

[And thus comes the time for parting, that ever sweet sorrow. Rip knows the signals for what they are, the words that thread together in a convenient excuse for Peggy to depart the bed and the escape they've found together. Sometimes she'll wait for him to doze, unable to resist the lure of warmth and blissful exhaustion enough even to sit up. Yet tonight he isn't so far gone; he watches her as she offers him those last fading gestures of affection, a sharpness lurking in his eyes as they meet her gaze.

Perhaps she'll see just how he has to bite back on his retort: a suggestion to let the needle run itself dull and useless.

But he doesn't say it. Nor does Rip try to stop Peggy as she makes her way from the bed. His arms part so much like a bridge to let a ship pass, fall away only just as she shifts slowly from him. He steals a final moment to brush back her hair as she moves upward, his fingers briefly curling through the locks. Rip rather likes seeing her with her hair in an unkempt mess—especially when she's stretched over him this way, and the deep brown blocks out every part of the world except her face.]

[mucked]

[ there's no mistaking it: protest or disagreement or reluctance, sprouting like some green seedling in his like-coloured eyes. peggy sees it now because she's waited to see it for weeks, now, every time she's mounted this particular tactic. ever since their conversation just before new years, she'd come to expect it. but she also expected to feel more upset than she does -- indignant, even. instead, as she lingers through her last few seconds in the bed, she realizes she might fancy any alloy of the three.

protest; disagreement; reluctance. all of it dismally persuasive, no matter what the ratio.

the realization is enough to make her quit his bed all the quicker. she draws in a steadying breath, breathing him in once more before sliding free and finding her feet. her nerve endings still feel like live wires, with skin prickling and puckering now that she has deprived herself of his heat. neither of them say a word while she picks up her trail of abandoned clothes -- stockings, garters, all the rest -- piecing herself back together in reverse order. she reapplies her lipstick, as though she couldn't bear walking the distance between his floor and hers without that basic piece of armour secured.

peggy is tucking her creased blouse back into her skirt when she does indeed rescue the record player's needle. she tucks the arm back into place and shuts the turntable off and (reverently) returns the record itself back to its sleeve. this is the time of night where, ordinarily, she would make for the door. or if rip had dozed off, as he does on rare occasion, then she might have stayed long enough to leave him a fond note. a scribbled see you next week, left unsigned.

with the needle retired, her sigh is the only sound to break the silence. it coincides with the moment her spine straightens once she's fetched her shoes from underneath her chair. rip might have bitten back on his retort, but she had seen it fomenting there behind his expression. it has, in turn, worked its way under her skin. what was sharpened in him stays sharp in her and -- before she can reason herself out of it -- peggy doubles back to rip's bedside.

she leans in with one hand denting the mattress and kisses him. if this is to be another kind of note then, unlike its siblings, this one is damn near initialed with lipstick left on his mouth in lieu of a signature. peggy's kiss pulls briefly at his lower lip before she mumbles something -- until next time.

and then she's gone. gone before what's sharp and rushed and protesting in her has the chance to fit, puzzle piece like, with what's in him. gone before she ends up letting another night together spill into a morning. the door closes softly behind her and she doesn't stop to tug on her shoes until she reaches the stairs. ]