gooseberryhigh | (no subject)

Who: Saira Raza & Jonathan Wilde
When: Feb 16, night of the Valentine's Dance.
Where: ESB cabin.
What: In which Saira & Wilde toy with cliche and tension, then make out a lot.
Warnings: N/A. Includes an embarrassing IC playlist.

Jonathan Wilde is not nervous.

This should be apparent in the way his area of the cabin has been artfully arranged so as to look lived in and casual, yet not -- for once -- in the usual sarcastic sense. For example: his books have been dusted and arranged, but his desk is a teetering mass of notebooks and papers and hand-drawn water and feeding schedules. Something in a pot (Clio III) waves green tendrils. Practiced, yet undone. That is the intended vibe. His t-shirt is clean and crisp and black, but still just a t-shirt.

Except that actually, he is a little nervous. It’s the only word for the dryness in his throat or the way he carefully straightens his collection of bad skate shoes. Even the music crackling from his glitchy laptop doesn’t help. He keeps swallowing and adjusting his hair, which -- in the spirit of the aesthetic -- remains uncut.

It’s all stupid, really. It’s not like he’s never been alone with Saira before. Just. Maybe not exactly like this. With her. Ever? He has no idea what to expect, but he does, but he doesn’t.

Whatever, Wilde’s totally fine. He handles himself with admirable cool when he lets her into the cabin, pulling off a smile that looks totally at ease -- because when he sees her, he does feel better. As sappy as that is.

“Sup,” he greets, moving to help her with her coat. “How were your freshmen escorts?”

Saira holds up a finger to stall Wilde, and then turns to the pair of freshmen- Study Group members too cowed by her magical powers of obtaining As for people to protest- and waves them off with a little shooing motion.

It is possible that in this, her senior year, Saira Raza has let power go to her head just a tiny bit. It is also possible that she has always been like this.

Once the children have fled, she turns back to Wilde and lets him have her coat. Unlike him, she’s dressed up, as one must be for a dance, but she’s also not particularly concerned about the difference in their attire.

“Tiny and ridiculous, but useful,” she replies, “which is more than one can say for the majority of freshmen. How was your hour of solitude?”

"Tiny and ridiculous," Wilde repeats, sardonic. "Yeah, useful just puts it right over the top."

He leans over to kiss Saira affectionately on the top of the head, grinning, and moves to lay her coat on his bed. Then he turns back to her, standing in the midst of the ESB cabin in all its mundane glory. The floor is probably clearer than its been in months. No pets wander, not even a Sid. His underbed terrarium is suspiciously still apart from intermittent rustling. Magical plants never stand truly still.

"Quiet," he answers, at last. He smiles at her, teasing. "You're overdressed." Pretty.

“I’m overdressed for a cabin rendez-vous, perhaps,” Saira replies. “Not for a dance. Which I looked in on, briefly, so hush.” There’s a pause before she adds, archly, “unless you’d prefer I go find myself a t-shirt and perhaps some jeans. It might take a while to locate them in my size, but if my outfit is more important to you than my presence…”

It’s fairly gentle teasing, as these things go, though she does take a step toward the door.

"Oh yeah, your appearance."

It's refreshing not to have to make one. No aloof posturing in formal clothing he always manages to mess up. No squinting at the song choice, or awkwardly swaying with his hands on someone's hips, devoid of warmth. And no punch.

Wilde shakes his head at her. "You don't have to go. There are plenty of choice garments in here. Perhaps my best hoodie?"

He takes a step toward Saira. "Maybe I should put it on. Up the class factor." A tilt of the head; his smile is a little sheepish now. "...Because you do look pretty."

“Your formal hoodie?” Saira asks, and it’s clear she’s laughing now, even if it isn’t aloud. “My favorite. One of us simply has to wear it. You may choose which.”

The compliment gets the acknowledgement of a nod, and if it flusters her just a bit, she tries hard not to let it show. “Thank you. And your cabin looks very...clean. For a place where boys live, at least.”

"I'll pass your compliments to my fine associates."

Like this, the way things are exactly in the moment, Wilde's sure he wasn't really nervous before. He couldn't have been. It was just a shade of feeling the way he does now, when she laughs in that way that isn't quite a laugh.

The hoodie in question, extra pocket and all, conveniently rests on the back of his desk chair. Wilde slips it on without a word, wryly half-grinning, and then holds his arms out: half a self-deprecating pose, and half an inviting one. "Am I dapper yet?"

“You are wearing neither a hat nor a cravat,” Saira points out, disappointment thick in her tone, “and so I shall have to say no. But it remains, surely, your most formal hoodie.”

This last dripping with disdain because it is, after all, still a hoodie.

She sits on the edge of Wilde's bed and glances around, then reaches for the book nearest her hand. “Are you going to entertain me? Or am I going to read while you have the honor of watching me read?”

Wilde zips up the hoodie with gravitas.

It is increasingly clear that he probably should have planned this, or done any planning at all. They aren't often alone. He could have made this something memorable. At least the books within Saira's reach are interesting; he did manage to curate those rather nicely while quietly freaking out about her impending arrival.

He wanders the periphery of the bed as though considering his options, then sits down gracelessly next to her.

"I did promise once to sit quietly with you anywhere," he says, echoing his infamous prom date note. "But we can probably be more creative than that between us."

Wilde reaches out to draw a finger along the side of her hand. "I do have something for you, actually. I didn't trust Event Committee to deliver it."

Also, he'd spent way too much time putting it together for something so mundane, but he's not about to admit that.

Saira shivers at the slide of his finger along skin that she’d had no idea was quite so sensitive until she started dating him; it’s an entirely involuntary reaction, and therefore one she instinctively tries to suppress, but it doesn’t work and at the same time she likes the way it feels. The slight tickle of it, the frisson of unexpected pleasure. Merlin, this is all so complicated and so simple at once.

“Careful,” she warns, arching a brow as she looks at him rather than acknowledge that momentary reaction. “Event Committee is dear to my heart.”

It isn’t. She’s on it, but it’s taken less and less of her attention as the years have progressed, more a check mark on future university applications than any sort of actual passion. But. It’s something to tease about now.

"No one would dare question your commitment. Especially me."

Wilde smirks, then shuts his eyes. "Okay," he murmurs, managing to sound self-satisfied and hesitant at the same time. "Check this out."

It's a wandless accio, which has only worked for him twice before. (A real leap of faith for Wilde, to be frank; usually he'd need a much higher success rate to entertain these kinds of theatrics). Thankfully, this attempt yields success; after a moment's centering, a beat-up old mp3 player throws itself onto the bed. Wilde manages to project its appearance well enough that he picks it up immediately, no awkward scrambling required; then he hands it to Saira, looping the headphones around the body, and places it gently in her lap.

"This," he tells her, "is mine. Or was. And it only works sometimes. The songs get mixed up." Disclaimers. He waves them away. "Gooseberry and electronics, right? But... I took most of my bullshit off of it and put on classical stuff for studying. And -- some other songs. On a playlist. For you."

The implication is that it's a playlist for or about them, but... that suddenly feels kind of embarrassing to say out loud.

“Songs,” Saira echoes. “On a playlist. For me.”

She isn't dumb; in fact, she's very, very smart. She knows what the implication is. In fact, she knows what the implication is in relation to Wilde, who would have spent hours on something like this, perfecting it just for her, on the off chance it might make her smile.

“May I listen now?” she asks, after a minute. “Or should I wait?”

Wilde makes a little considering motion of the head, then reaches back over to retrieve the player from her lap again. He unwinds the headphones, handing them to her to place on her head, and moves to initiate the first song on the list.

The little machine doesn't want to start at first; it lets out a pitiable whir, then starts to play, seemingly in response to his dead-eyed look of warning.

His eyes are much warmer when they flick up to look at her again, though. He smiles and moves slightly closer.

Saira rearranges her hijab just enough to put the headphones in place, and while she rolls her eyes at Wilde, there's a smile playing and her lips and as the song starts she scoots back against the wall reaches one-handed to tug him closer still. Close enough that she can lean her head on his shoulder.

Whether by design or because the player is on the fritz, the volume is low enough that she can hear herself when she speaks. “Thank you. This is...it's very you, of you.” A pause and then as if realizing that this might be unclear, “I like it.”

Wilde nods, resting his head against hers, temple to temple. He can faintly hear the song this way: quiet peaks of sound and bassline dips.

It's peaceful to sit like this and be quiet, staring down at the player's anemic screen as the song title scrolls past, scrambles itself, scrolls past again. Pleasant.

"Guess what the last song is."

Saira thinks for a moment, and then laughs, half to herself, though the way she shifts just enough to look up at Wilde invites him to share the joke. “If it is Octopus’s Garden, I shall make you sing along,” she threatens, thinking of prom. “It will be terribly teenagers being romantically antisocial together of us.”

Then again, they’re already that. It might be a good definition of their entire relationship, come to think of it.

Wilde laughs out loud with exuberance that is, frankly, rare for him. Obviously Saira would remember -- her mind is a fucking steel trap -- but it's still delightful that she does. Or maybe it's just the little shift, how she looks at him. Whatever.

"Really? You didn't get enough for a lifetime at prom?" He asks, still half-laughing. "Maybe if you ask nicely. And say please."

“Don’t make me order you to do it,” Saira says, straightening, imperious, though she can’t help smiling as she does it. “I will, if you make me. And I’ll make you do it every time we hear that song for a lifetime.”

Which is...maybe a little much, but it doesn’t occur to her until after she’s already said it, and she’s not going to back down from it now. She pauses briefly and then nods, as if to affirm that she means it.

"You know I don't respond well to authority," says Wilde matter-of-factly. He straightens to match her, though he's far less good at "imperious" than she is. He just looks sort of disheveled and wry, nodding back at her, as the movement (for the sixtieth thousand time) slides his hair into his eyes.

"Alternately, is this the part where I say 'so make me' and then we kiss after a moment of tension?" He teases. "Because I can deal with that cliche if you can."

“You cannot sing with a tongue in your mouth,” Saira points out evenly, “which all of those cliches would seem to demand. Try again.”

She is not relenting, clearly. But does she ever?

"You're not honoring my talents," says Wilde, in a practiced clip. He is far better at kissing than he is at singing -- though of course for Saira he'd do one, neither, both, depending on her whims.

"Also," he adds, this time with measured directness he definitely learned from her, "Now that I'm thinking about it, didn't someone say... 'It doesn't always need to be what I want?'" He taps her knuckles softly with a finger for emphasis, then slides his hand slowly over hers to dial the volume of the player down just slightly.

"Then again, I could be remembering wrong. And you do make a lot of sense, as usual."

Saira sighs, long and pointed, and slips the headphones away from her ears. “Oh, Jonathan,” she laments. “Maybe it isn't about talent. Maybe it is because it was prom, and you sang to me, and it was ridiculous and clichéd itself. Maybe I liked it because you aren't very good at it. Maybe,” and here she arches one of those dark brows, “if you'd just done it you'd have gotten your tension-breaking, very romantic kiss.”

She sets the player aside- next to herself, though, not him, because she does not intend to have him take it back- and leans back on her elbows, against the bed, looking up at him expectantly. Check.

Wilde raises his hands in surrender, mouth curling in a sarcastic grin that cannot hide its affection. "That's cool, that's cool. I guess neither of us gets what we want. Compromise."

He watches her for a moment, amused, and lets silence fall between them. The cabin is quiet, apart from whispery, glitching podcast voices from the laptop he forgot to turn off. Scritching of pet feet. Leaves rustling.

"This is nice," Wilde states flatly. He doesn't move, but he continues to look at her, gaze sliding in a playful, purposeful slip up the sparkling grey-purple of her dress, the lines of her body with its coiled snake language, and finally to her eyes. "We should've been sitting here just staring at eachother the whole time. Good thinking."

The other brow arches to meet the first, but Saira says nothing. Nothing aloud, anyway. She does reach toward Wilde's table to take one of his books and then, without otherwise changing her posture, props it on her knees and opens it. She has no particular issue with spending their evening alone together reading, if pressed. And she is very, very patient.

Wilde continues to stare. It's childish, but it's all he has.

"Oh, are you going to read out loud to me? That's romantic, Saira. Especially from" -- he dips his head to 'read' the cover aloud in a slow, wondering voice -- "Maggie Nelson's The Art of Cruelty."

Silence again. Wilde considers his options, then moves closer. But not too close. Just close enough. There's a balance to this with a bed only meant for one, and it involves some finesse.

He settles, reading companionably beside her for a long stretch of quiet, then offers:
"If you really want me to do what you want, I think you know what you have to do. It's the only way."

He lowers his voice, as though distracted by the text. "...You'll have to say please."

“Hush,” Saira says, tone teetering somewhere between warm and mildly irritated. “I am reading.”

There. Now she's told him to do two more-or-less mutually exclusive things. He can either shut up and let her read- a fine and actually fairly romantic evening, in her opinion- or he can go on talking and risk annoying her into leaving. Or he can sing the damned song and she can reward him accordingly. Regardless, she wins.

Wilde makes a little sound of acknowledgement, narrowing his eyes at Saira and then at the text. He's curled himself gingerly around her in a cat-like way reminiscent of his patronus. This would not be a horrible way to spend their time.

Of course, he's aware of the situation; as the partner who often loses in these exchanges, he knows when she has the upper hand, and he mostly doesn't mind. Maybe he would mind, if she weren't herself. Love is stupid, and it makes him stupid. That's the only reason he's giving in, obviously.

"You know what this chapter, entitled Styles of Imprisonment, reminds me of?" A healthy, sarcastic pause. "My favorite Beatles song."

He hums the first line of the first verse in a preoccupied-yet-self-conscious tenor, which gives way to singing under his breath: "he'd let us in / knows where we've been / in his octopus's garden..." A pointed look at Saira. "In the shade."

Saira is, as usual, pleased to win; and in concession to time and place and circumstance, she allows herself to be more than pleased. She is delighted to win, and what's more, she let's it show in the small, warm smile she gives to Wilde as her eyes lift from the page. She is even gracious enough in her success to murmur a wry but heartfelt “Thank you.”

A pause- she finishes her paragraph- and then she sets the book aside and gives her boyfriend a thoughtful look, head tilting slightly. “You know, I've decided that I'm overdressed after all.” A smile, maybe teasing, maybe secretive, maybe both. “As your formal hoodie is taken, how do you feel about me borrowing the second-best one?”

Wilde's only response is an answering smile, because -- true to form of cliche -- Saira's does make losing feel fine.

He lies motionless for a moment, gazing up from his comfortable proneness as she closes the book. Saira's next words inspire a moment of surprised panic until the request follows, but he manages not to show it, apart from a rush of color to the face. Poise.

"I live to serve."

True to messy tradition, his second-best hoodie -- fully identical to the first except for the all-important pocket and a torn elbow -- hangs among a collection that has accrued on the closest bedpost, like a colony of bats.

Wilde moves to retrieve it for her as if he'd been anticipating this request. He drapes it around her shoulders, cloak-like, leaving both hands softly grasping either side.

"I promise it's not that dirty," he teasingly assures. It does, however, smell like the garden.

“So reassuring,” Saira replies, shaking her head. She stands, and spins one finger in the air in the universal gesture for turn around. “Close your eyes. I don't have to tell you what will happen if you open them.”

She pauses, smiles, makes it a joke. “One of us will turn to stone. And wouldn't it be exciting to discover which one?”

Or, as much of a joke as Saira ever makes.

"Okay."

Wilde closes his eyes, obedient, and turns away from her to face the rest of the empty cabin. He debates joking back, but for once can’t seem to manage anything even vaguely clever.

A quick, wordless charm to take care of unzipping her dress, and Saira steps out of it. She’s wearing leggings underneath, of course, and Wilde’s hoodie is more than long enough on her to make the outfit acceptably modest.

Well. For a certain definition of ‘acceptable.’ Her mother most certainly would not approve, but Noor Raza is not here, and for Saira’s own definition in this time and place it counts.

She murmurs another charm to make her dress float over to the wall and hang there, unlikely to wrinkle in midair, and carefully straightens herself out before speaking. “All right. I am decent again.”

Wilde feels an odd pang of nervousness as he turns back around. Despite the relative modesty of Saira's current ensemble, he's not sure he's ever seen her in anything like it, and it's his hoodie hanging off her, so. ...That's cool.

If this were someone else, he'd probably get closer. Maybe touch them a little. Of course, in this parallel universe he'd also have something smooth to say, and maybe they'd also still have the headphones in, so it'd all time with the heaviness of a perfect song.

Instead he stares a little, this time not on purpose. A moment later he catches himself and can do nothing but shrug at his own obviousness, smirking.

"You wear it well," he states, almost achieving the desired nonchalance. "Do you feel sufficiently casual?"

“I do,” Saira affirms, and if she feels her face heat at the way Wilde is staring at her, she tries not to react to it. “this is not, after all, your formal hoodie. “

She makes a point of studying him before adding, thoughtfully, “Oh dear. Now you're the one who is overdressed.”

Wilde furrows his brow at her as if to ask really?, but can't quite remove the smirk from his face. This is fun. He feels stupid and weirdly alive, which is truthfully all he ever asks of his various stunts.

"I just love looking my best," he tells her flatly, slipping his arms from their sleeves. "But I wouldn't want you to feel outclassed."

He rolls his shoulders in their sockets, stretching, and tosses his hoodie haphazardly onto the bed. The movement shows off a pair of matching purple elbow bruises.

"What else can I do for you?" he asks, teasing.

“Mmm,” Saira hums. She notices the bruises, but her boyfriend usually sports a few of those. Why ask? “I believe I was promised clichés and tension.”

She crosses her arms over her chest- trying for pointed, but maybe coming off a touch self-conscious- and taps her foot as if impatient.

Wilde shakes his head, smiling mostly to himself before glancing at Saira with guarded love.

"You're completely charming," he informs her, as if pointing out the color of the dress on the wall, or the increasing heaviness of the space and silence around them. His laptop has long since glitched itself out of a voice. All they have now is an electric hum and the suggestion of wind outside.

He sits on the edge of the bed again, patting the space next to him. "So if there was a promise, I should probably keep it."

“Am I?” Saira asks, head tilting, genuinely intrigued by the notion. “I do enjoy that you think so.”

Very few people are charmed by her. Very few people are smart enough. She sits down, close enough to touch but not actually touching.

"Good, because I can't help it."

Tension and cliche. The space she leaves between them is good for the first, and maybe for the second. Saira really never does anything halfway, but Wilde's always trying to meet her there anyway. In this moment, he's alternately afraid of doing something wrong and of doing nothing at all.

"So if we're really going for the cliche, I can stay here," he says, indicating his place at her side, "and speak in lines to you. I'll say embarrassing things that have a hint of soul-baring truth to them, and you can laugh at me until we meet eyes and suddenly it's not funny at all, it's deadly serious." Wilde glances at her with steeled eyes in mockery of this tableau, then glances away, musing. "Next we can totally make out and the camera will pan up, cue indie music. Or we talk for hours in eachother’s arms, and no one’s ever understood me like you. Title card.”

"Or," he adds quietly, after a moment of consideration, "I can cross over the line and we can skip the cliches entirely, which is cliched in of itself. Advanced cliche.”

Saira’s pop culture knowledge is considerably less advanced than Wilde’s, but yes, all of that sounds fairly accurate to her. Accurate, and terribly boring by virtue of being so definable, and because it’s supposed to be. And terribly interesting at the same time, because as confident as she likes to play, this is not her wheelhouse. She’s making this up with very few guidelines beyond ‘act superior and like everything that happens is exactly what you planned all along,’ but she’s painfully aware at moments like this that this act is precisely what Jonathan likes about her, and so she can’t drop it enough to admit any uncertainty, not really.

And so.

“Everything is cliche,” she points out, which is true and untrue and appropriately jaded. “The question is, which of those do you want?”

It puts the ball back in his court without entirely seeming to. That’s good.

"Honestly?" Wilde makes a sound somewhere between amusement and soft exasperation, entirely at himself. If he knew what was Saira was thinking, he'd laugh -- his mind turns so many of the same corners over and over again, though self-deprecation makes his clumsier.

"You? I just want you." He pauses, then says it again. "I want you. So. Whatever." It's not really an answer, but it's honest.

He thinks. "For real, here's..." Wilde shakes his head at himself. "You asked for a cliche? I wasn't sure if I was going to tell you this because what the fuck, but I totally climbed the Ornery Oak for us." Wilde's smile twists, and now he actually laughs. "Like, all the way to the upper branches. I even woke up early."

(Are things even more cliche when they happen for real, and not for the sake of irony? There's a topic for the senior project.)

That begets a pause that’s maybe long enough to be called a silence instead. It’s so very stupid, and so very sweet, and so very Wilde, and Saira thinks she may love it and hate it in equal measure. Love it for the aforementioned, and hate it because she loves it so much.

In the end, she literally can’t think of anything to say which expresses these complex emotions better than what she does say, which is, “Shut up.”

She follows it up by moving, quickly- perhaps quickly enough to betray uncertainty, if one considers that she handles uncertainty by pretending the exact opposite whenever possible- to swing herself around so that she’s straddling Wilde, one knee on either side of each of his legs on the mattress. She doesn’t quite rest her weight on him- they’re touching below the waist, but only barely- but she does put her hands on his shoulders and lean in to kiss him, and they’ve kissed before, of course, but they’ve taken things very slowly and this feels like a huge leap forward and she’s sort of terrified of it even as she’s doing it. All but sitting on a boy, on his bed, wearing his hoodie, mouth against his. It’s no Ornery Oak, but it’s the best she’s got.

It's weird how something that has traditionally meant very little during grotto parties or chance encounters feels incredibly, very, notably important right now. It's overwhelming, like kissing someone for the first time. In short, Wilde shares Saira's terror, or a version of it.

When she leans in he responds slowly, languid and open-mouthed. The kiss verges on tender, but not entirely -- there's a tiny edge of aggression he can't help, betraying a long time spent wishing something like this would happen.

But he's scared to touch her, kind of, or mostly scared of scaring her, so he doesn't really. Just a palm along the side of her face. That seems safe.

Oddly, Wilde's hesitation emboldens Saira. It's like if he won't push, she'll have to- and though a thousand doubts about why he won't tug at her mind (what if he doesn't actually want to? What if he's wishing right now that she'd get off of him, or laughing at how unpracticed and maybe bad she is at kissing, or pitying her attempt at being worth wanting, or- but no, he wouldn't date her for irony, at least not for so long, and so this can't be that) she dismisses them the way she's always scared away doubts that would stop her from going after what she wants.

And she does want this. It feels real, and good, and immediate, and important in a way that she never imagined something as silly and objectively off-putting as kissing actually could.

Maybe she needs to stop thinking so much about it.

She shakes her head just the tiniest bit, throwing the train of thought away, and tries- perhaps a bit clumsily- to deepen the kiss, make it harder, more urgent. And in doing that she can't really keep track of not putting her weight on the boy below her, and so she does, so that they're really touching. It takes her by surprise how thrilling it is really touching.

Okay. The new depth of Saira's kiss is welcome, even if he's not expecting it. Adaptation. If this is what you want.

He pushes back at her roughly, except for the soft, involuntary sound in the back of his throat at the press of her weight against him. That's not expected either, but it feels right. He presses his hands to either side of her face, holding her to him, then drags his fingertips down her sides with soft violence, encircling her in his arms to pull her in closer.

Now seems like a time to ask if this is okay, but maybe she can set her own boundaries. That seems fine. A reasonable thing to assume.

He does break from her, though, just in case he's presuming too much. Not that the concern is very apparent, dragging his mouth along the line of her jaw.

Saira is shaking a little: not much, and not bad shaking, but it's definitely happening. It's overwhelming, is all, to be this close to someone, to finally really be doing this instead of just thinking about it, dwelling on it, wondering if she'd like it or if he would, if it would be okay.

“Jonathan,” she says very softly, her head tipping back a little, instinctively, giving him room. As soon as the name is out of her mouth she realizes that she isn't sure what she meant to follow it with and she laughs, quiet and wondering.

When she pulls back that little bit, so does Wilde, with a small, somewhat flustered smile. You're shaking, he thinks. Good shaking? That little laugh seems to say so, but he still tightens his arms around her in a supportive loop.

"Hey Saira."

It's on the tip of her tongue to apologize, but she has no idea what for and it's not something she does, so she gives a stubborn shake of her head to get rid of it.

“Hey,” she echoes, and then laughs again, because this is absurd and awkward and she feels vulnerable as hell, and she likes it anyway. The best way to express that seems to be to go back to the kissing, so she does.