in the fields and in the forests

[formicine]

[august 15]

Blue blinks awake languidly in the sunshine of that rare thing, a lazy Saturday morning that both she and Kat have off. It's not accidental, but it's incredibly nice. Next to her, her girlfriend curls, sleeping peacefully but not unrousable, and Blue stretches, smiling and watching her for a moment.

They've been together almost exactly six months today: not something Blue was precisely counting, but when she's turned over her idea for what she wanted to do today in her head, it makes for an extra rationale. Despite that being a pretty significant amount of time, she thinks, in an early relationship, some things still feel just a little novel after several years living together. Getting to wake up together, to watch the way sunshine sits on Kat's skin when she's asleep and relaxed, to curl closer into her on those days she doesn't want to get up, is one of those things.

Blue's not going to stare for too long, though, and she leans in to nuzzle a stripe along the bridge of Kat's nose with her own, brushing a lock of hair back from her face. "Good morning," she sing-songs, very quietly, hiding a grin.

Comments

[swerved]

Instinctively, Kat groans a little upon being woken up, though there's little real protest behind it. In truth, she'd been just about starting to stir already, and while it may not still be as new as it was some months ago, she still enjoys waking up like this, with her girlfriend's voice in her ear and Blue warm beside her. Not having a shrill alarm urging her to get out of bed sooner than she'd like to is just an added bonus.

"Morning to you too," she says, her voice still hoarse from sleep, but with a crooked smile curling the corners of her mouth. "Time is it?" It doesn't really matter, which is a rare, nice feeling, but she's curious all the same, and not really conscious enough for much else than savoring this yet.

[formicine]

Blue smiles and glances back over her shoulder to glance at the clock before resting her head on a propped arm, enjoying the way they fit against each other.

"Quarter to eleven," she says. "We don't have to get up yet if you don't want to." They have a whole day in front of them. "I want to show you something, today, but it's not going anywhere."

[swerved]

"Mm, well, now you've got me all curious," Kat says with a lazy smile, not yet making any effort to move. Whatever Blue wants to show her, she does want to know, but she's not quite alert enough to feel particularly compelled to get up yet. At a time like this — early but not so early that she wants to go back to sleep, late but not so late that she feels like she's overslept at all — it's easy just to enjoy the warmth and closeness of waking up beside her girlfriend.

"I'll get up in... a minute. Maybe."

[formicine]

Blue presses a teasing finger to her own lips, smirking behind it. "Nope," she says with a faux-pretentious air. "Sworn to secrecy." This, of course, is bullshit. The only person she could have sworn to is herself, and where Kat is concerned most determinations she'd made to herself have turned out to be pretty malleable.

(She could, she suppose, have promised Cabeswater she wouldn't tell, but she's not entirely sure the forest would care.)

"I'm in no hurry," she says, more seriously, happy to be languid and lazy next to Kat. "Though if we're not going anywhere, I do need to inform you that I'm owed birthday kisses."

[swerved]

"Oh, well, in that case," Kat says, her smile pulling just a little wider, the memory of what today is clicking into place just at the same time that Blue says she's owed birthday kisses. She has plans, too, for that matter, but nothing that isn't low-key or flexible, just typical birthday things. This year won't be the first time she's celebrated with Blue, but it will be the first time she's done so with Blue as her girlfriend, and that both seems to make it feel a little more special and, selfishly, kind of makes her want to keep it just the two of them.

If Blue had wanted to have a big party with all of their friends, she would have arranged one without any hesitation or disappointment, but for today, she prefers this.

It wouldn't make much difference now anyway when it's still just the two of them, warm sunlight filtering in through the window. If it's birthday kisses Blue wants, it's birthday kisses she'll get, Kat leaning in to press her lips against Blue's, soft but lingering. "Happy birthday."

[formicine]

Blue smiles into the kiss, humming pleasedly when it lingers longer than she was expecting. "Thank you," she says back primly with a little grin hiding behind it: she leans back in for a second kiss and idly runs her toes over the side of Kat's leg before tangling them both up.

"I'm glad we both took off work," she says, carding her fingers into Kat's hair. Birthdays can be a little weird in Darrow; it's easy to think of people who aren't here anymore or people back home who haven't seen the years that have passed. It's rarer to have a beautiful warm morning tangled up in bed.

[swerved]

"Me too," Kat says, her expression drowsily contented. They both keep busy, and while that's certainly not a bad thing, for an occasion like a birthday, it's nice to have no other obligations. There's nowhere else they need to be and nothing else they need to be doing; they can just enjoy it, and she intends to make sure that Blue does so. It's the least she can do for her girlfriend's birthday, and an easy task to take on regardless, especially when, so far, it's only involved lying around in bed.

Her fingers trail absently over Blue's shoulder. "Definitely worth it."

[formicine]

"It's like a double present to see you get to relax," Blue points out, smiling. "You do too much work." This moment feels like the mood equivalent of a warm pool of sunshine: it's a luxury that Blue isn't quite sure she's done anything to deserve, but it's absolutely one she'll accept. Right now she can imagine herself falling back asleep cuddling, or getting distracted by Kat for another hour, or getting up in five minutes, and all of them sound pretty equally delightful.

Well, at some point Persepho-cat might decide they should get jumped on, but. Still.

She shivers pleasantly at Kat's fingers on her skin. "Mm, that's ...nice." She puts on an expression of faux-shock. "Katherine Rance, are you trying to distract me?" Blue laughs and rolls in to kiss her, soft and lingering. "It is working, if you are," she adds, as an afterthought. She is perhaps a little unabashedly a morning person in that specific regard. It wouldn't be the first time a completely benign affectionate gesture settled in just the right way.

It takes a long moment for her to admit, "Maybe we should get up, before I don't want to get out of bed."

There aren't, as far as she's aware, any rules against kissing in Cabeswater. If there are, she's pretty sure Ronan and Adam broke them all a long time ago.

[swerved]

"Not trying," Kat says, though she looks pleased all the same, a hint of a teasing laugh in her voice. "But not objecting, either." As nice as it is just to lie here, basking in the morning sun and her gorgeous girlfriend, though, she thinks Blue is probably right. It's early yet, and she still doesn't know what Blue has planned to show her, but regardless, they'll have all day, and they can surely wind up back here again sooner or later. It's difficult to want to move when she feels so warm and content, still just a little bit hazy with the lingering vestiges of sleep, but they might as well before they get carried away, as nice as that would be, too.

She takes a breath, exhales on not quite a yawn, and stretches her arm over her head. "Okay. Yeah. Getting up." Still she lingers for a moment, working up the will to do so. "In a second."

[formicine]

"Mm, it's true, you don't really have to try," Blue says, with an entirely shameless grin, and watches her for another second, head on one hand, before sitting up and stretching.

"It'll be worth it. At least, I think so. Or you could definitely keep me in bed with you all day." She gets up and grabs clothes while Kat's contemplating wakefulness: jean shorts, a patchworked top she'd made out of patterned scraps, boots that'll handle the woods.

"The only hint I'm giving you is you might want to think not getting bit up by mosquitoes when you're getting dressed," she says, smiling.

[swerved]

"Ooh, okay, so we're doing something outdoorsy," Kat says, grinning. It barely narrows anything down, but it's kind of fun, having these surprise plans ahead of her. She hadn't really expected Blue would plan a surprise on her own birthday, but the timing leaves her all the more intrigued, suspecting that there's probably something significant about it. This doesn't really seem like the time to just try some new restaurant or whatever, something that they could do at any other time.

And even if it were that, she wouldn't need to worry about mosquitoes anyway.

Finally pulling herself out of bed, she glances over at Blue. "I think we have bug spray somewhere around here, too. Right?"

[formicine]

Blue makes a little motion between her temple and Kat in an on the same page gesture, smiling. She hadn't specifically meant this trip to be fully a secret, but she'd been a little nervous about it and now that it's ended up that way she's enjoying dropping hints.

"We should, yeah, good idea." Blue looks around, more out of the physicality of thinking than because she thinks it's actually in the room. "I think in the medicine cabinet. I don't think it's going to be -- bad," she adds, because she's not making this surprise trip sound very appealing, and also because it's just true. They won't be by water, and also, though she isn't going to say it yet, Cabeswater is a little too magical a place to have too many pests unless someone was just standing in the middle of it fixating on them. "Just -- well, you said it. Outdoorsy."

"If I could take you somewhere back home, I'd drive us up into the mountains a little ways, somewhere we could sit for a while and just look at the views. I miss the Appalachians. But this is ... something close to home in a different kind of way."

[swerved]

Although she's usually a little too pragmatic for such things, hearing that, Kat can't help but think maybe someday. It's probably unlikely, but that doesn't mean it's impossible, and it would be nice, she thinks, to get to do exactly that — see where Blue is from, drive up into the mountains together, spend a day that way. She's never seen that part of the country. It's hard not to want to now, just like it's hard not to think about the places she would take Blue if they could go to Chicago.

She would say so, except it seems like it runs the risk of being just this side of too serious to go further down that road, so to speak. Another time, it might be worth it, to get thoughtful about missing their respective homes and wanting to be able to show them to each other, but she doesn't want to risk bringing the mood down on Blue's birthday.

Instead, she starts rifling through a drawer for clothes that will be suitable to wear for some sort of outdoorsy excursion. "Close to home, got it, got it," she says, teasingly curious, as if trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together. She'll see for herself soon enough, though. "This is kind of exciting. And here I thought I was supposed to be the one surprising you for your birthday."

[formicine]

Blue sits to lace up her boots and tilts her head; she can kind of see Kat thinking, and it always makes her curious. Not in an anxious way, the sort of nervous not-knowing that sometimes she'd felt when she and Adam were briefly together, or even, occasionally during times when she was trying to figure out whether or not to tell Kat how she felt. It's more that she just genuinely likes to hear Kat talk, likes letting their thoughts unwind and pick up like kites whether they're important or not. If she doesn't feel like sharing, that's all right too.

Her smile widens into a grin when that expression of thought turns laughingly investigative. "Good," she says. "It wasn't ...exactly planned to be a mystery," she admits, with a little laugh as she gets done and stands up. "But I like it."

"And, for the record, you are still completely allowed to surprise me, if you want," she adds, grinning, and leans on the wall, only watching Kat get dressed a little shamelessly. "But this is -- good."

[swerved]

"Is watching me get dressed good, too?" Kat asks without missing a beat, shooting Blue a crooked, teasing grin as she finishes doing exactly that. She really doesn't mind it at all. For that matter, she's never been modest about changing in front of people anyway, is almost positive that she'd done so in front of Blue long before they became something more than roommates. It just comes with the territory after spending a long time dancing, sharing various dressing rooms with various other people. Modesty went out the window years, maybe decades, ago.

It's different when it's her girlfriend, though, and when she can feel Blue's eyes on her, an entirely pleasant sensation. Tugging her shirt straight, she pulls the tie out of her hair as she turns towards Blue. If they're going to be outside, there's probably no sense in showering now, something better saved for after, but she does want to look at least slightly more presentable. "I like it, too. This is fun."

[formicine]

"It's a nice bonus," Blue says with a little smirk. "Busted." Sure, after a year or so of living together they'd gotten pretty relaxed about modesty -- wandering around in underwear and a t-shirt, or looking for a stray bra taken off before they got to their rooms or what have you -- but she'd never just let herself look, before they started dating. For one thing, she'd been dating Tris for a good nine months in the middle there -- but even then she thinks that there'd also been a little weight she'd recognized to it, even if at the time, she would have written it off as politeness and the awkwardness of acknowledging each other as attractive.

"I get to do that anytime I want, though," she adds, with a wider grin, over her shoulder as she grabs her bag from the bottom of the bed. "Come on, let's find out if the Pig is going to behave today." She can hike to Cabeswater on a good day, or bike, but she has no interest in finding out if Kat's knee would put up with that unless there's some kind of emergency. Gansey's car isn't the most reliable thing in the world, but she's at least gotten better at driving it in the last few years.

[swerved]

"Hey, I didn't say I minded," Kat points out with a laugh, though she suspects that's pretty self-explanatory. If she didn't mind before, she definitely doesn't now, the casual intimacy of it something she's come to enjoy. On another morning, at another time, she might let that lead her right into getting undressed again, but there's too much else to do today. She's really curious about what this surprise is, anyway, that requires both bug spray and driving to get there, and Blue having planned all of this for her own birthday.

She grabs her own bag in turn, with a little foldable hairbrush from inside it so she can brush her hair as they go, and then her knee brace, too, figuring the odds are good that she'll need it for whatever this excursion is. "The Pig better behave today," she adds, teasing. "I mean, it is a special occasion and all."

[formicine]

"Maybe we'll get lucky and it'll remember the date," she teases back, as they head out, locking the door absently and taking the elevator. "It's definitely taken this route before." She likes dropping hints; it makes it a little bit of a scavenger hint. Although possibly anthropomorphizing a car isn't the best idea in a place as strange as Darrow. Still, she's hardly the first to do so.

The orange Camaro's parked not far from the door of Chelsea Cloisters, in one of the street parking places reserved for residents but not assigned, always creating a sort of jockeying for position. Less so, though, now that it's summer and good weather, and fewer people are using their cars and getting protective of the spaces they shoveled. Blue slides into the driver's seat, adjusts it and the rearview out of habit. Her seat's all the way forward, and she's got the passenger seat fairly reasonably far back so Kat doesn't crunch her knee and anyone any taller has at least a little room: it's sort of the reverse of how it'd have been set up in Henrietta.

They can still bump each other's hands (or shoulders, or knees, with a little effort) across the gearbox, though, and as they wind a little further toward the countryside through Darrow weekend traffic, Blue finds the back of Kat's with her own, smiling contentedly. "Any music requests?"