[gravesend] it's coming up lavender

She watched him quietly, his fingers touching her dress, a small smile playing about her lips, wondering what he was thinking. She would have asked as much, if she hadn't been so distracted by the serendipity of the situation tonight. It seemed so randon and yet it felt so easy. Effortless, like floating in the water, being swayed by its gentle currents and Sen was happy to flow with whatever was going on tonight. She nodded at his question and smiled wider. "Don't believe me?" she asked with a tilt of her head. Did it seem to him like she was more of a fighter or was he just projecting?

Then again, maybe not. He gave her his profile for a moment and she immediately missed his gaze. Odd but she wasn't one to question it. It was almost a relief when he faced her again and were those dimples she saw when he smiled? Full of surprises, she thought, and she smiled impishly at him. "Hmm, so what are you today? More of a lover or more of a fighter?" she asked before she started kicking her legs gently to take her backwards.

Unlike him, she did not play sports for a living and all this treading water was getting tiring. She stretched her shorter legs down for a moment and then gracefully pushed herself back through the water a little more until she could stand on her tippy toes. Whew.

"I believe you," Harlan said simply. His smile dimpled as the water lapped subtly against his neck from the waves they created from their movements, even minimal. He shook his head, his teeth setting on his bottom lip. Only vaguely was he aware of the uncomfortable feeling of being fully clothed in the open water. Senna had proved distracting enough, anyway. She had a strange sort of magic about her; an openness he desperately wanted and feared in equal measure.

"You don't strike me as a fighter," He added, though he figured that had been obvious.

Senna moved to where she could stand but Harlan stayed further out in the pool. His feet touched the rough bottom of the pool easily where she had been in over her head. "Which do you think?" He wondered. Most of the time, he was a mix of both— an impossible amalgamation of love and hate. "I'd like to think a lover," He said, lingering in the water a bit closer, letting the currents they'd made push him. "But—"

Harlan was a realist, after all.

"Maybe a bit of both," His smile pulled into a more full grin, mischievous. "On a good day," He added, inadvertently closer again, finding it hard to stay away from her close proximity for too long. "I'm surprised we haven't been found yet..." He thought out loud, his voice echoing off the water and reverberating off the marbled walls and ceiling. It felt like another world, but he was quick to remind himself just how close they were to the party.

She laughed lightly, the sound clear and high, bouncing off the walls of the room just like the water reflections were, as she gave him a bright smile. No, she wasn't a fight at all. It wasn't in her nature. Senna wondered why it felt nice for him to notice that. "Only a fighter if you try to take my dessert," she joked but then tilted her head as it occurred to her. "You don't like sweets though, do you?" she guessed, remembering his decline earlier that had felt more like a 'no in general' rather than a 'not right now.' "That means we'll get along great," she summed up neatly, teasing, as if that was the only sign she needed.

Now that she could touch the bottom, she could let the water move around her rather than fighting to keep afloat. Again, not a fighter. She couldn't keep still either. There was something about being in the water in her dress and also a feeling in the air she couldn't quite name, but it made her limbs tingle with energy and a need to keep moving. She brought her knees up to her chest, feeling a momentary weightlessness in the water, before touching them back down and stretching her limbs out in front of her as far as they would go. It didn't feel far enough though. She wanted to be everywhere, or maybe nowhere, and he seemed far away.

His question made her smile and it only grew wider as he looked at her like that, that gleam in his eye. It felt like reading his palm all over again and the thought that he might refute whatever she said made her curious for his reaction. "I think you're a lover, but you want to be a fighter," she replied, seeing both the hard edges in him but also the warm golden of his aura. She took a step forward, feeling the pool floor sloping away from her and towards him, as she glanced at the door, hearing the party sounds beyond.

Senna turned back to him with an airy shrug. "I'm not surprised. Not many people fancy a swim at a dinner party," she said straight-faced and then couldn't stop the grin from lighting up her face.

Harlan was halfway to opening his mouth to say that he didn't want anything to do with her dessert when Senna did the job for him— you don't like sweets, do you? The question and thus her infliction was posed from the position of a person who already knew the answer. It was quietly rhetorical. "That's right," His eyes narrowed before relaxing just as the smile cut the straight line of his thoughtful mouth.

He watched carefully as she moved through the water. Her fingers searched the vastness of clear cerulean liquid like she might find something hidden amongst the waves if she focused for long enough. Harlan's own stillness was a stark juxtaposition to the energy that emanated from her, the energy that moved tangibly to her limbs.

"Oh, you do?" Harlan's smile broke once more, that time more amused than before. Senna had drifted closer and he found that he did the same, those his steps were more deliberate, he figured. Where his feet planted was deeper, but he still was lengths above her out of the water. The fabric of his shirt clung to his skin above water and he wished they had met somewhere further down the pool.

"Hmm," The thought hummed against a place deep in his throat. "Did my palm tell you that as well?" Harlan drew the aforementioned limb out between them to breach the surface of the water. He tilted it to Senna and instinctively reached to her wrist to direct her to hold the back of his hand as she had during the initial 'reading'.

"Which line says that?" He wondered, a smirk breaking before his gaze met hers by way of her shoulder, neck, then mouth.

A little thrill went through her as he confirmed her guess. Ok, so she wasn't much of a palm reader and it was mostly guess work with flare, but she liked that she had gotten at least some things right. He really did seem like the private type of person so she wondered at what made the universe was trying to tell her when it provided the right answers to her. It was something she got stuck thinking about as she noticed how the smile on his face made him seem even more intriguing. More golden somehow?

"Mmmhmm," she sounded in reply to his question, an impish smile playing about her lips as his amusement and closing proximity seemed to warm her up. It was shallower here so she was more free to trace the broad lines of his shoulders as more emerged from the water. How his shirt clung to his body was particularly distracting, how he moved through the water so powerfully as if the weightlessness of the water didn't affect him at all. She kept forgetting somehow that there was a party going on just outside or that swimming in her party clothes wasn't the norm. It all just was and Sen was happy to go along with it.

She gave him an airy shrug about the whole palm-reading thing. She knew there was some kind of science behind it, but had she forgotten to tell him that she didn't know all the ins and outs and only liked the idea of everything? Oopsies. Still, as he reached for her wrist to give her his hand, she didn't hesitated. She took a step closer, sinking lower into the water as the floor sloped away from her, using his hand to steady her as she met his gaze. "The lover/fighter line, of course," she teased without even looking at his hand, her thumbs brushing against his palm lightly. She might have attempted another read if she wasn't so distracted.

Senna couldn't be sure what it was about him, but she took another half step forward, making gentle waves between them.

Though he'd very clearly given his palm to Senna for her to study, Harlan focused instead on her face as it bowed, the way that her fingers seemed to create a piece of art. At least she was keeping up with the charade he thought distractedly, amused, and watching Senna trace nothing in particular on his skin with her both thumbs. The touch was minimal but it sent a wave of electricity across the surface of the water and up to his spine. He only just suppressed a chill.

"Oh that one, of course," Harlan nearly scoffed but the grin on his face betrayed him. "Sure does say a lot doesn't it?" He went along with it, for then.

"You're right," He said plainly, pausing, realizing he'd spoken without thought. As bogus as the whole palm-reading thing was, Senna had seemed to tap into him more easily than he cared to admit. Then again, maybe that was the appeal of the whole palm reader thing, after all— finding one's self in anything another person said. Humans were inherently selfish like that.

Harlan knew that he was, at least.

"You'll have to promise to keep that between you and I," His eyes narrowed as she drifted closer. The fabric of her dress moved against the places of his body that were exposed and he found himself wanting just that little bit more. "Can't have my bad-boy reputation tarnished..." Harlan clicked his tongue. Enough of his actions warranted that, too. "So either you're the same," Birds of a feather. "Or the opposite— a fighter masked as a lover," He wondered, his hand touching her side, gingerly at first.

She smiled softly at his sarcasm and yet she couldn't quite believe that he thought it was all bullshit. Senna knew she had gotten some things right at least, whether it was because she was just good at guessing or maybe it was just the universe pulling them along together in the cosmic stream. Who was she to fight against such coincidence. "Still don't believe me, huh?" she asked, her voice soft and curious as she traced lines on his palm, her fingertip dancing across the surface, her hazel eyes warm despite the cool blue light reflected in them from the water.

"Maybe I'm just better at reading you than most," she added shortly before he confirmed she was right. Her eyes lit up in victory, a thrill shooting through her. She met his warning with a roll of her eyes and a little sigh. He had said something similar earlier and it made her wonder how many people he had known that had taken his secrets to the press. Was it from experience with bad people or just paranoia? Hmm.

"You have a bad boy reputation?" she repeated, laughing quietly at the thought of him being so private that he didn't want anything spilled (she always felt so open with others that the opposite inclination was a mystery) and also at the thought that this captain of the team whose aura was so obviously golden was considered a 'bad boy.' She shook her head at him, her silvery blonde hair scattering drops of water as she did so, meeting his gaze. "I don't see it..." Bad boy? It was her turn to play the disbelief card.

Then again, she thought as she felt his hand at her side and she moved infinitesimally closer, he was swimming in a pool with a virtual stranger standing very close. Close enough that she could reach out her hand to touch one of the buttons on his shirt as she considered the two options he gave her, thinking it over for a quiet moment where it was only the distant sounds of the party, the water lapping against the edge of the pool, and their breaths mingling. "Can't I be both?" she asked finally, looking up at him in question. Why pick just one?

"Oh? Didn't you notice the bad boy line?" Harlan teased as he ran a thumb over the opposite palm, intentionally brushing his knuckles against her forearm in the process; his own quiet form of retaliation. Maybe she wasn't all that good at reading him after all. At least as far The Prophet and their web-weaving puppets were concerned. Senna didn't strike him as some kind of fucking press loyalist, but to not know entirely...?

Harlan reminded himself that he was trying to not lean into his skepticism.

Couldn't she be both? The question lingered amidst the soft waves created between them. Somewhere distantly (imagined or not) the sounds of the party seemed to echo hollowly against the cavernous haven they had stumbled upon. Harlan thought for a breath, taking his time. "Of course," He was surprised that she had even considered him a judge of character to make that kind of call.

"Then, I can too," It was neither a question nor statement. Be both a lover and a fighter. Good and evil. Everything existed on a spectrum, Harlan thought. And their night was no exception. Senna's hands on the buttons of his dress shirt gave him pause. He raised a hand to stop her in vain, his eye meeting hers in silent question. It was obvious, at least he thought, the question; did she really want to go down that route?

The attempt to stop her was purely superficial, of course, and he let her fingers easily rake against his skin.

Instinctively, Harlan moved his hand to the small of her back, pulling her closer.

"Hmm, how did I miss that?" she mused, playing along, her voice light, laughter hinting at the edges as she gazed up at him. She liked this teasing side of him. It made him feel warmer, more open. Not that she would tell him that for fear he would close himself off just to be stubborn. Besides, she felt something crackling in the air around them and it was nice and thrilling and curious and Senna had never been good at leaving well enough alone.

He seemed to take his time thinking about her question and it gave her time to study him. The way his hair looked darker now when wet and how drips of water fell to his shoulders, how the water made his blue eyes brighter somehow, how it felt more intimate to be swimming in their party clothes than maybe it would have been if they were in bathing suits. His 'of course' made her tilt her head, having momentarily forgotten the question she had asked, but it was only a few seconds delay before she smiled widely at him. That was the correct answer. She always wanted to be both. Binary decisions were so dull.

Senna gave him a nod as she watched him raise his hand and she stilled. Had she made a mistake? She met his gaze with her unfettered one, curious, wondering, and said in the quiet space between them that seemed to be lessening with each breath, "You can be anything you want." And maybe she was talking to something greater than the lover/fighter thing they were currently focused on. Maybe she wanted that to be true for herself as well.

As if she could do anything she wanted too. As if she was free enough or perhaps brave enough to do that.

She felt him pulling her closer, the water making her feel weightless, the pool floor sloping down so that she could no longer touch, but she didn't mind because she had him to hold on to instead. She gazed up at him as her hand flattened against his chest, feeling his heart beat beneath her fingertips and an echoing thrum in her own chest matching it.

He could have whatever he wanted. The statement hit him in a way that Harlan knew was not warranted. The palpable, foreign, shift in his chest was not one he deserved. He thought as much, anyway.

Senna's fingers traced through the fabric of his soaked French linen dress shirt and his breath fumbled on the way out of his lungs. What had been worried about, again? It was as though his body wanted a rection he wasn't ready to allow. As she moved down from the first button to press against his chest, second thoughts were lower on the list of his immediate priorities.

Harlan gripped involuntarily at the fabric of her dress at her back.

At once, he forgot a god-damn-conscience altogether.

"Good," He shifted in the water to accommodate her pressed against him. He ran his hand over her back, then back down again under the water. "Certain you mean that, then?" That kind of power was not something Harlan needed. The smile could be heard in his tone as he leaned back slightly, at the same time that he ran his other hand over the outside of her thigh as if to ask the question more physically.

Her hand on his chest, the fabric of his shirt the only barrier between, her other hand sliding into the water to trail her fingertips up his forearm. This was so unexpected, he was so unexpected and he was this interesting dichotomy between closed off and open. So of course she wanted to explore it more, that interesting line to see just where he fell.

And whether it was because of her wayward, curious thoughts or how his hands felt on her back or how he was looking at her with those blue eyes that seemed a little darker now, Senna couldn't follow the plot on exactly what he meant. She understood him rather in the smile in his voice and with his hand on the outside of her thigh. He was speaking her language and she responded in kind, giving him a hint of an impish smile as she slid her hand up a little further, gentle but daring, the space between them lessening with each breath.

"Very certain," she told him, soft as a whisper. She was certain in this. Certain that the vibe was right and it felt like the stars overhead, both in the painting and out in the night sky above them, had pulled on their strings to get them both here tonight. And even if wasn't that totally true, she didn't particularly care. She was curious enough to be certain enough about this moment even if the next was different. Senna leaned into the moment and into him, a smile curving up her lips as she laid a hand on his shoulder and brushed her lips against his.

Harlan was distracted.

He was distracted by the way that her hand had drifted up to his chest toward his neck— his own flexed against her thigh in return. He was distracted by the way that her voice carried over the subtle waves created by slight movements— a chill ran up his spine. "Good," Harlan repeated. In his voice, it was obvious that he was entirely otherwise occupied.

That was the problem with physical touch, wasn't it? It was the kind of thing that inevitably left you wanting more.

Harlan thought so anyway; he pulled her leg up around his waist, his mouth following her direction, proving the point.

There was a brief moment he wondered how in the hell they had ended up there, but the question lingered only for half of a thought. There were more pressing matters that he wanted to deal with first. The hand that wasn't clutched to the fabric of her dress at her side moved to the back of her neck; the ends of her wet hair were surprisingly soft in the chlorine as they draped over his wrist.

The need for words and replies faded into the background as the curiosity of his touch and contact cascaded over her. She went with him, as easy as the water flowing around them, as he pulled her leg up, gently hooking it around his waist. The touch of his hand in her hair made her flutter and feel light but also anchored in a delicious way too. Both of her hands now on his chest, feeling the lines of his muscles beneath the fabric, running upwards before she looped her arms around his neck, as her lips danced against his.

After a breath, Senna pulled back, a whisper between then and smiled at him, biting her lip, as she met his gaze. She wasn't sure how to read him exactly, she had only met the man an hour ago, but whatever she saw there gave her a good feeling.

So she let herself free fall into the moment and closed the distance between them again, kissing him again, her fingers touching the ends of his hair at the nape of his neck.

She broke the kiss but Harlan didn't sense hesitation— not if her hands firm on his chest or her leg wrapped around him were any indication. There a brief moment of stillness amidst the chaos they created. He watched her curiously (again, how the fuck had they gotten there?), the sound of his blood pumping was heavy in his ears. And then Senna bit his lip and Harlan could feel his grip involuntarily tighten around her thigh. However close they were, he felt the need to be closer.

As if reading his mind—how ironic—Senna leaned in again to press her lips on his more feverishly than before. His eyes fluttered closed as her fingers crept through the ends of his wet hair that was more grown out than it had been in quite some time; he was far from clean-shaven in the last couple of months.

Like instinct, Harlan pulled Senna up so that both legs were wrapped firmly around him. It was a strangely intoxicating thing, being in control, and he found in most situations he craved it. Romantic or not. They were close enough to the edge of the pool that it only took a subtle shift to push her back against the concrete. Had it been too forceful, he wondered?

Harlan ran a free hand over her neck, his mouth following slowly to the spot under her jaw.

She couldn't help the smile that graced her lips as she gazed at him, seeing a look in his eyes that was mirrored in hers, feeling like every inch of her skin was alive and asking for attention. Lips and hands would do for now, assuaging that curiosity she couldn't quit chasing.

He was magnetic and Senna, for as much as they had joked about it, wasn't a fighter.

She moved with him easily, holding herself against him and looping her legs around him, letting him take the lead as she was apt to follow. She only made a small noise in her throat as he pushed her against the hard edge of the pool, the concrete scraping against her back for a moment before she shifted.

Senna was distracted soon enough, his big hand trailing over her neck followed by his lips as she tilted her chin up to give her better access, seeing the stars wheeling above her on the painted ceiling as she trailed her fingertips across the the wide expanse of his shoulders, giving in to the feeling of him against her.