Notes1: This was more of a spur of the moment thing I cranked out in a couple hours. Not much inspiration was needed other than my watching that one memetic clip from March of the Penguins of the penguin falling down and throwing a fit.

"I'd tap that."

It's with this statement that Velvet almost—almost—spits her drink out and choke on her own tongue. Perhaps she would have been hospitalized under the auspice she suffered a sudden, massive stroke. Perhaps, by any stretch of the imagination, she would be declared dead. Fatal heart attack, the doctors would say with a cluck of their tongues and a shake of their heads. What a terrible fate she's met, and so young, too. What a shame.

(They would never know the truth that death by ogling at someone's ass cushioned by hip-hugging jeans would be just as terrible a fate than fatal heart attacks and grand mal seizures. And if they did—well, she's pretty certain no one has ever died of literal embarrassment. There's always a first.)

Instead she swallows wrong and hacks away, has to beat a fist to her chest to settle down. Meanwhile Doodle flails about next to her on the couch, wiggling his body and slapping his front paws on the upholstery. Why, though, is beyond her; dogs have this strange habit of sperging out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe it was just a Doodle thing for him to do as much as his abrupt disappearances out of the blue were, too.

Quite frankly, Velvet doesn't care. Stranger things have happened since the trial. Death by grand mal seizures, fatal heart attacks, eye candy, and embarrassment should be the least of worldly concerns.

(Right? Right.)

"Wh-What?" Velvet managers to get out, trying to sound not the least bit strangled.

"I said I'd tap that," Eleanor says, and gestures at the television screen where, filmed thousands of miles away, a flock of penguins trundle along in the arctic. "Once for the kill, and another for good measure."

For several beats, Velvet can only blink. Then she shakes her head and makes face—dumbfounded, then disgusted, then curious, and right back to confused. "...We're not talking about zombies, are we?"

"What? No!" That gets Eleanor to twist around from her spot on the floor, and—well, it takes a lot of willpower not to stare at how form-fitting those pants are making her...endowments. "I'm talking about eating a penguin!"

More silence. Only the narration on the TV and the fan on full blast fills it in.

Velvet takes a sip, licks carbonated water and sweet from her upper lip. There's a fine, stark line between her brow. "You want to eat a penguin?"

She blushes. "W-Well," she raises a hand to scratch one cheek, "b-between you and me, I wouldn't mind. I've had fish before. Crab, too. I even had whale once. You remember, right? Magilou mentioned shipments coming in all the way from Pendrago."

Oh, Velvet thinks. Those shipments. Those very same shipments, she thinks with a groan and an urge to facepalm, that were hiding several thousand gold's worth of weapons the Bloodwings smuggled in to combat the market their rivals were making a killing on in the city. Goddamn, Magilou, what the hell. "Y-Yeah. I remember. Good...but a bit too thick to chew."

"But it was good, wasn't it? I always liked seafood, you know. So...that's why, when Magilou gets her schedule and the next day off, I want to ask her if, well, maybe she can get in touch with her...connections, and save me a piece or two of penguin meat." Clearing her throat, Eleanor quickly adds, "Preferably from the ones that aren't endangered, mind you."

"...Huh," Velvet says, and takes another sip.

"Woof!" says Doodle, and flails about again.

"Yes," Eleanor says, and crooks a finger to tug at the collar of her shirt. It's just high enough for it to cover the scar, but not enough to show the barest hint of cleavage for all the world to see.

For one brief, eternal second, Velvet can see the doctors shaking their heads and writing away on their clipboards while her body lies on the hospital bed. Brain hemorrhage, too. What could have caused such a thing? The world may never know.

"WOOF!" Doodle barks, slapping a paw down on her leg. WAKE UP, FOOL, he seems to say. YOU WANT TO GET CAUGHT?

(No. No, she doesn't.)

The feel of claws on bare skin makes her wince. SAY SOMETHING, he seems to urge.

So Velvet does, smirking at her from above the rim of the bottle. "Who'da thunk," she rumbles, "you had urges."

Eleanor shoots a glare at her. "Excuse me?"

"Such a savage," Velvet purrs. "Wanting to eat a poor, defenseless, presumably endangered penguin. Who knew you had it in you."

Her face colors. "Big talk for someone who wasn't born in the tropics!"

"Some lines just can't be crossed." Another, longer pull. Refreshing, and Velvet closes her eyes, savoring the hint of kiwi and watermelon on her tongue. Eleanor ought to buy more, if she's not going to repair that air conditioner unit anytime soon. She couldn't be that cheap; some financial sacrifice could afford to be made. Or maybe she was that cheap. Taxes in this city are such a bitch to contend.

Eleanor splutters indignantly, trying to form the words but unable to get them out. She stops, makes a noise of frustration, and there's the sound of her getting up and onto her feet. "F-Fine! Then if I'm a savage, I'll strip down next time I'm over at your place! All the way down!"

Velvet doesn't swallow carbonated water—she inhales it, right through both nostrils, and this time she has to throw an arm up over her face to cough and sneeze liquid instead of dousing her khakis and the couch with it. When she recovers, it's to the sight of Doodle and Eleanor looking at her: one angry, and one a little too eager. "R-Really?" she asks, not bothering to hide the way her voice hitches on the word.

"Yes, really!"

"You mean you'll do it? Actually do it?"

"You think I won't, huh? You really thought that when I said 'maybe' I wasn't being serious. Didn't you?"

Velvet laughs. "Well...yeah! Yeah, I didn't think you would-"

"Watch me," Eleanor growls. Gets up in her face, bent over with her hands on her breasts, teeth bared in a snarl. "I will strip down, in your garden, article by article, until I'm as naked as the day I was born and standing in the suburban equivalent of the Five Empyreans' paradise. I will take your hose, turn it on, and water the plants for what it's worth. And you are going to like it."

Velvet stares, wide-eyed, into her face. All thought of stealing surreptitious glances from her periphery at the way she's towering over her, skin shown in the right places, jeans conforming her hips, her fingernails are trimmed and natural, or even the image of how she'd look with her hair down, are suddenly pushed to the back of her mind. (Except the one that thinks what a lucky bastard Mr. Hume is for landing a lucky babe such as his wife; Holy shit, where would the world be without you?)

Quietly, she sets the bottle down on the folding table. Folds her hands on her lap and remembers to breathe. And finally, calmly, speaks: "Nah," she says, with a tiny shake of her head and an even tinier, nervous smile that won't go away. "No you won't-"

"Don't think I won't, Velvet Crowe," Eleanor hisses, pushing in further into her personal space. Space that Velvet allows her to overtake, receding deeper into the back of the couch. "Friday morning. I'll be there."

"No kidding?"

"No kidding. I'll make your garden the best on the block. Nay, the whole neighborhood. Even the whole city!"

"Oh?"

"Oh. Believe me, I'm very good with my hands."

Doodle sneezes.

Velvet presses her lips. Once. Twice. She nods. "Okay," she says. "Okay," she says again, and pushes to sit up a little straighter. "Friday morning. When we're both off work. I expect you to be there. And I want to see you strip down; face-to-face, no turning backs on each other."

Eleanor sniffs. "I've seen you naked more times than I can count. This'll be a piece of cake."

"Then it's a deal?"

"It's a deal."

"Swear on it," Velvet says. She holds out her left hand, scarred over with discolored flesh, pinky extended. "Show me you mean it."

It takes every ounce of restraint not to flinch when Eleanor leans over, links her own finger with hers, and yanks hard enough to brush up against the bone. "Well?" she asks.

Velvet harrumphs. "Good enough. Come on." She lets go and stands up. "Let's go get something to eat at the mall. Something civilized." She hears Eleanor mumble something that sounds almost like a curse, but it's too low for her to catch. She grins and walks to the front entrance. "My treat. I'll drive."

"You work today, right?" Eleanor asks, and follows after her.

"Open and close, three to nine. Rokurou'll be with me."

"Well hopefully you'll stay out of trouble long enough 'til the end of the week."

"Hey, I've been a good girl so far."

"So far," Eleanor emphasizes coolly, and brushes past Velvet to grab her purse off the coat rack on the wall. "You've got trouble written all over you."

"Ah, but I'm not written all over trouble," Velvet retorts, leaning up against the threshold, hand on one hip. "Kind of impossible to do without a physical form to call its own."

"Who's to say it doesn't have one already?" Eleanor pops the collar of the leather jacket and opens the screen door. "You coming?"

"Yeah, gimme a sec. TV's still on. Go hop on. I'll be right there."

Eleanor goes without a word, and so does Velvet. But not before stealing one quick sweep up the woman's body, starting from the curves and up her back where her hair hangs in a low, loose tail.

"Heh," Velvet mumbles quietly when she's out the door, mouth tipping a small, smug smirk. "Like you're really goin' to do it. But," and she shrugs, "maybe I'm wrong."

"Woof!" She looks down at her feet to the dog padding up to her, meeting her gaze with a wag of his tail and that saintly smile. He shuffles back and forth on front paws, nails clicking on the varnished wood step. TAKE ME WITH YOU.

"Of course I wasn't going to forget you," she tells him. "Let's go, boy. You're riding shotgun."

"Woof!"

(Later that afternoon, when there's a break in the flow of customers bringing their bikes and cars in to be inspected or repaired, Rokurou turns around the corner of the garage into the reception area. Velvet doesn't know what he's going on about—maybe a problem with one of the automobiles, the latest spike in crime activity in the city, the demonstrations he's holding at the Rangetsu dojo. She doesn't know nor care, but the sudden gasp and crinkling of papers startles her awake and gets her to turn around to behold just an equally startled Rokurou. "What? What's wrong?"

"Are you okay?" he asks, bringing the clipboard up to bear.

She makes a face. "Of course I'm okay. Why wouldn't I be?"

"You look...I dunno, happy."

"Happy?"

"Like 'I just went on a Ferris wheel and didn't pass out because I had a spiritual awakening looking at the horizon this high up' kind of happy." He appraises her curiously. "Are you taking drugs?"

"What? Are you crazy? I don't do drugs. I don't even drink. What the hell made you think that?"

"Well you're staring out the door, for one," he says diplomatically. "And you're smiling. Like, full-blown schoolgirl smile. Not the slasher kind you wear when someone tries to rob us."

Velvet scoffs and turns away. "You're seeing things."

"Clear enough to not need glasses, either! Something's on your mind...and I'm willing to bet I know what it is."

"Go ahead and try," she says, and crosses her arms over her chest. "You'll get it wrong."

"Wanna bet?" Rokurou comes up to her, grinning.

"I'm not interested."

"Aw come on! I'll pay you a thousand gald, right outta my checking account!"

"I still wouldn't tell you."

"No, but you'd let the others guess, wouldn't you? I'd bet you'd make deals with them!"

"I don't gamble."

"Bah! You're so stingy!" Rokurou pushes off the window with his hand and walks back behind the desk to take the clipboard. His reflection picks up a pen, presses the button, and starts writing. "Well, I'm going to ask around and I will get an answer," he grumbles. "Maybe Eleanor might know…."

Eleanor won't tell you shit, Velvet thinks. Thinks, as she watches the rush hour traffic go by, of a woman with long red hair and low-riding jeans that should be criminalized by law, hanging onto her from the back of the motorcycle as they drove down the streets to the mall. Hands on the dip of her waist, thighs and breasts pressed flushed against her hips and back-

She wouldn't tell at all. It's our little secret. Besides, I'd never hear the end of it if someone found out. Then where would we have our privacy?

"Prove me wrong, Eleanor," she says, low, so Rokurou doesn't hear. "The day can't come soon enough.")