Title: Piece This Thing Together
Author: Tiamat's Child
Fandom: The Faculty
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Stokely/Marybeth
Summary: Stokely gets a first kiss. Set just after Delilah leaves the group.
Disclaimer: The Characters aren't mine, neither is the framework. The prose, however, is mine. MINE! Heehehehe...
Note: The title, disturbingly enough, is a Doonesbury quote. Worse, it's a Duke quote. *shrug* It works out of context. ;D
Piece This Thing Together
Tiamat's Child
Stokely is out of it. She feels almost as if she's been wrapped in water and set adrift from her own thoughts. Normally the constantly talking voice that lurks in the shadows at the back of her brain would comment that this is why she avoids drugs, it's bad enough that she can't control her own body half the time, being unable to get control over her mind is simply too scary. But that voice seems to have been convinced to be silent, for once. Maybe the drug is good for something.
She's vaguely aware that she should be worried, or frightened, or somesuch thing, the way that Casey so clearly is, the disquiet etched into his face and walk despite the quiet giggles that still occasionally issue from him. But she isn't. She's fallen into some strange sort of story she might find in the library, waiting to be read and known, not lived, and she can't find it anywhere in her to really worry.
Were she coherent, she would realize that this is a function of the drug in her system, but she isn't and she doesn't, and she's never been high before so she doesn't really know what to expect and it's all a bit much to deal with so she plops down on the grass in Zeke's front yard and trembles.
It's cold tonight, the first autumn night with a true bite to its breath, and Stokely's trembling follows the rhythm of her shivers, taut and clear. Stokely takes a huge gasp of a breath and the chill catches in her lungs and makes her cough. Marybeth, still as giggly as anything, drops onto the grass beside her and rubs her back in a soothing circle.
"Are you all right?" She asks Stokely, that sun-drenched accent of hers turning the words into auditory whiskey. Stokely closes her eyes and lets a deep shudder run through her. Marybeth's voice feels good to her. "Stokely?"
Stokely tumbles lightly into Marybeth's lap, because no, she's not all right, and falling seems to be about all she is capable of at the moment. But that's not what she says. "You're beautiful." She tells Marybeth instead, blinking up in awe at the other girl. In the warm yellow light from the street lamp, dim and diffuse as it is, Marybeth's face seems to glow, and her eyes glitter with surprise.
It occurs to Stokely that a mouth that's as warm as Marybeth's should not be allowed to get cold through prolonged contact with the night air, and that means that someone else should make sure it stays warm. So Stokely twist her way around to be able to lift her shoulders up and be half sitting. Once she's like that she can put an arm around Marybeth's shoulders and raise herself up, pulling Marybeth down just a bit as she does, and they would have bumped nose -because Stokely hasn't done this at all before and is too high to think of such a tiny detail in any case- if Marybeth hadn't tilted her head just that needed amount.
Stokely is fumbly and uncertain, because, after all, this is entirely new and she can't be expected to be perfect at something on her first go, no matter what her parents always insist. But Marybeth doesn't seem to be expecting any perfection from her, and gently guides Stokely's uncertainty into sureness. Marybeth explores Stokely carefully and thoroughly, searching out the line of her teeth and the small scars on the inside of her cheeks from where Stokely bites them to keep from laughing or screaming or, sometimes, from crying. And Stokely kisses back, safe in being shown what brings pleasure, fascinated by everything; the shapes of the crowns of Marybeth's teeth, by the taste and rhythm of her breath, by the knowledge that this is the closest she, Stokely, has ever been to another living being. She's delighted to discover that she can get Marybeth to make small, whispery sounds that touch off tingles at the back of Stokely's skull. Stokely makes quite a few sounds like that herself.
How they sit shifts and hands wander, Stokely's fingers wending into Marybeth's thick, smooth hair, loving the strength of the loops around her hands. Marybeth's hands sneak under her shirt and up her back, tracing graceful patterns like ocean currents on her skin. And Stokely, sitting nearly in Marybeth's lap, whimpers and presses closer, having a sudden fantasy of melting into her, the two of them becoming joined where the skin melds and the veins knit together, sharing blood between two bodies.
Stokely's high and away, and everything she can feel on her skin and mind and every other piece of her is held by the blade edge contrast of the warmth of Marybeth and the cold brush of the wind across all of her exposed skin. It's everything and anything, and nothing Stokely's ever felt and all too much, and she likes it a lot, she doesn't want it to stop, but it's beginning to be overwhelming and she's remembering why she's afraid of sex, even if it is only a vague dreamy memory. So she breaks the kiss, though she doesn't pull away. That would, she somehow understands, hurt.
Instead she nestles into Marybeth, who is warm and smells nice, like cheap, strong soap and sun-dried cloth and something that Stokely can't quite identify (or at least refuses to try to do so) but is inherently female. That works, because she's still close, but now she can track her heart and try to bring it back to a solid rhythm. Marybeth laughs and runs a hand through Stokely's hair, ruffling it. Stokely likes that too.
"You told me you weren't a lesbian."
Stokely almost stiffens, the usual strange panic tightening her lungs. Questions. She hates questions, and the implication of an accusation of untruthfulness in that sentence pains her, even though Marybeth's voice is light and easy, and she sounds more amused and self-satisfied than angry or betrayed.
"I'm not." Stokely says, and means it. She isn't, not really. There are other words for people like her. Which is good to hide behind lots of the time, even though it can make it so hard that she wishes she could find a way to hide from herself, too, and not just others.
"Hmmm..." Marybeth murmurs.
"I'm not!" Stokely's getting annoyed now. She doesn't like not being believed.
"All right." Marybeth's voice is bright and holds more than a hint of laughter, but Stokely decides to ignore that, in part because Marybeth isn't acting stoned, and that briefly strikes her as odd, but she decides to ignore that, too, as she's never been around drugs before and has no real knowledge of what people sound like when high. Anyway, it doesn't really bear thinking about. Nothing does right now.
"You're cold." Marybeth points out, and Stokely would normally congratulate her on the brilliant observation, but right now it doesn't seem worth the effort of speaking. It's probably the drugs. They're interfering with her natural sarcasm.
"We should go in." Marybeth tells her. "You'll get sick." But neither of them makes the slightest gesture toward actually getting up and walking the suddenly huge distance to Zeke's house. Stokely certainly isn't in a hurry to leave where she is. She likes this cuddling.
"They'll start worrying about us." Marybeth sounds like someone arguing with herself. "It's not that far."
Stokely sighs and struggles to her feet, giving Marybeth a hand up.
The basement is warm and well lit, and Marybeth and Stokely sit side by side on the couch. But Stokely had been right. She can't touch the other girl here.