Title: Tasting The Rain (1/1)
Author: Silverkitsune1
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Bela Talbot/Gwen Raiden
Warnings: Femslash, crossover with Angel
Disclaimer: Neither Angel nor Supernatural belong to me
Summary: Gwen and Bela discuss the best place to unload a litter of unusual kittens.
Author's Note: Thanks go to my wonderful betas lj users samcandoit and madserver.
The air conditioning was broken. Bela's hair was piled high atop her head, but curls that escaped the bindings weighed heavy on the back of her neck, and thin wisps of brown clung to the sweat that soaked her hairline.
There were people she could call about this, but Bela hadn't lived this long in a job that liked to kill you on your first day by allowing strangers into her home. She didn't plan on staying in her New York flat for longer than a few days anyway. She could deal with the muggy heat for now, and if in a few hours Gwen's whining became too much to bear, well, she could always break out the Ouija board and call up one of the more benign members of the spirit world to help bring the room temperature down to a manageable level.
Leaning across the wide oak table top Bela propped her elbows on either side of the world map she'd unrolled, using her weight to keep the curling edges down.
Errol, Bela's long tailed Siamese cat, yowled unhappily from his perch atop the high stool. The piece of furniture sat in the center of her kitchen directly under the light bulb Gwen had accidently blown up earlier that day. It was an island that Errol had unwillingly become stranded upon, and there were sharks in the water.
Pushing himself onto his hind legs, Errol waved his dark brown paws and cried again. It was echoed by several smaller, higher pitched meows.
"In a moment, loves," Bela murmured. Her finger traced around the tip of Argentina, and she tapped the map in thought. "What do you think about Venezuela?"
Gwen's long hair was bound in a wet braid that hung down her back, the red streaks twisting in and out of her otherwise brown hair. She sat in the lotus position atop Bela's kitchen counter, dressed in a cotton tank top and sleep shorts that Bela thought might have been hers. The heat had Gwen abandoning her traditional leather for airy cotton attire, and she leaned her face close to the small portable fan she'd dragged up the stairs an hour ago.
"Plenty of polluted waters and lakes," Gwen said. "But I still say if we want to make a mint we go to the Mideast. There are a lot of powerful up and comers with more money than they know what to do with who would love to get their hands on one of them."
The chorus of playful cries suddenly turned venomous as Errol hissed and dropped to his belly. Leaning over the side he swatted at the cluster of Korat kittens, four in all, that had crowded around his perch, all watching him with intense green eyes. One, braver than the rest, flicked her tiny ears back and rose onto her hind legs to meet Errol's challenge with a defiant merp.
"Errol, be nice to our guests," Bela sighed.
"Yeah, Errol," Gwen sang. "Be a sweetheart for mummy."
She coated the last word in syrupy sweetness, and the worst British accent Bela had ever heard. The English woman looked up from her map, her thumbnail digging a small half moon into South America's curving tail.
"Didn't you spend the first seven years of your life as a proper English woman?" Bela asked peevishly.
Gwen shrugged. "Didn't keep anything else from the land of cold and kidney pie. Seemed like a waste of energy."
Her lips twisted in thought, and Bela felt her nerve endings sparkle and fade with that look.
"Not that I'm a big fan of the suffocating summer we've got here."
Gwen twisted toward the sink, and the shorts slid to hang low on her hips and show off the technological wonder that was LISA. The sunlight glanced off the metal of the work, and Bela felt her fingers itch, though whether it was the sight of the LISA or the smooth ribbon of Gwen's bare sweat-soaked skin that caused it was unclear.
When Gwen twisted back she waved a dripping wet hand at Bela. A slow grin crept across her face, and she flicked her wrist sending beads of water across the wood panel floor.
Errol started as the drops pocked his back, and abandoned bothering the kittens for washing himself furiously.
The kittens twisted left and right, mewling in confusion. Ears flickered to and fro as they tried to figure out where exactly the unwanted rain shower had come from. One followed Errol's example and smoothed a tiny pink tongue over its blue-gray fur.
"Oh now you've done it," Bela said. She quickly went to work rolling the map up.
Stillness filled the air. The space around the broken bulb seemed to turn itself inside out, and the stretch of white ceiling was suddenly blocked by a small black cloud about the size of a volleyball.
One of the kittens sneezed, and a bolt of lightning shot out of the cloud. It slammed into Gwen's chest, knocking her off the counter. Errol, who had seen worse than a slap-dash thunderstorm in his time with Bela didn't look up from his washing.
"Son of a bitch!" Gwen hissed. Huffily, the elder thief pulled herself to her feet, and rubbed her bruised rump.
"I told you not to get the Korats wet," Bela said, stowing the map away before skirting around the table.
The cloud began to grow. Coils of lighting chased their tails in the belly of the churning, growing mass as it encompassed the kitchen ceiling and pushed into the living room.
Bela slid behind Gwen, wrapping her hands around the other woman's waist. She kissed the side of her neck and breathed in the smell of salt, heat and looming rain. Gwen pushed back into the hold, and Bela let her hands slide lower past the elastic band of the shorts' thin cotton.
"I'm not supposed to feed them after midnight either, right?" Gwen responded cheekily.
The kittens sat patiently, heads tipped back and black noses pointed toward their mutual creation. One scratched his needle sharp claws against the side of the stool, tail lashing furiously, and Errol took a moment from sulking and cleaning to swat at him. A clap of thunder finished the duel before it began, and Errol, deciding that enough was enough, leapt over the curious brood. He slipped between Bela's legs and trotted toward the bedroom.
"I always meant to ask," Bela said as her fingers dusted across Gwen's lower belly. "How on earth did you shower before you stole that expensive piece of water-proof technology?"
Gwen twisted, grabbing Bela around the waist and lifted her atop the counter. She pulled her forward, and the kiss was softer than Bela expected, but hungry in the way Gwen always was.
"Alone."
The rain began to fall.