Practice Makes Perfect

Chapter 2

Ha! Fang thought. She's finally doing something wrong!

The brunette saw her opening and decided to take it... well, mentally preparing herself before actually walking over to the pink haired woman. A new machine had arrived at the gym a couple of days ago, and apparently it was one that this woman had never used before.

The machine was tall and had multiple exercise areas to it, going around it in the circle, each of them different. Only one of the exercise stations had the pink haired and pale skinned woman using bad technique. White metal of the machine rose high in its center, the anchor for all the parts, from it another piece of metal jutted out about 8 inches above the floor, creating a foot hold for the person using the station that the woman was at. Five or so feet above the foot hold was some more metal coming out from the middle anchor. This metal split into two directions, making a sort of narrow, horizontal football goal post. At the very ends of it were vertical hand bars and towards the ends were some pads on the metal to relax your forearms. The exerciser was supposed to use the arm supports to raise their body up so they could then raise their legs horizontally – a great exercise for the abdominal and other muscles.

Superficially it wouldn't look like the athletic woman was doing anything wrong, but Fang had a decently trained eye. She could see that the woman's shoulders were too tense, too raised. The woman seemed to be starting her movement from her arms and shoulders instead of purely from her stomach. She needed to relax a bit in her superior appendages – much easier said than done, but no one ever said that good technique was easy.

Fang was taking another minute to think of how to approach her (and to also finish her reps of lunges).

She doesn't seem like the talkative type...

And she's still listening to her iPod... She wouldn't have been able to tell except for the headphone wires coming down around the front of her neck, where the two wires joined into one, and then continued down to the music player that was teasingly tucked between her shorts and her hip for safekeeping.

None of Fang's thoughts were optimistic any longer. Sure, she now had a reason to talk to the woman, but she was still being shut down when it came to actually doing it. She finally just decided to walk up to her and go with whatever came to her mind at the time.

Fang raised from her last lunge forward and put the free weight back on the rack where it belonged (after wiping it down with a small, white towel and some sanitizer, as was the gym's policy). She turned and started walking towards this taciturn lady she had been eyeballing over the last few months. The woman was currently taking a break between her repetitions of the abdominal exercise, her arms and hands still in their places, but her body is lowered so she can rest on the foot supports.

The walk was the usual steady swagger that Fang uses, crossing the area from the pink haired woman's right hand side. She still wasn't exactly sure what she was going to say to her, but she was sure it would come to her soon enough. Fang's heart rate started to increase as she got closer, and she knew it had nothing to do with the work out she had been doing previously. Either her heart grew or her ribcage shrunk, she was sure of it. There was no way the involuntary muscle would be beating so hard against the bones any other way. At least any increase in sweat production or blood rushing to her cheeks wasn't noticeable.

Fang's green eyes noticed that the woman started to take a few deep breaths in and out as she anticipated doing another round of reps on the machine. The pale woman slightly pushed off the foot hold and stabilized her body by flexing certain muscles in her hands, arms, and upper body. Fang noticed the defined line of the flexing bicep of the woman's left arm. She started to smile as her eyes unconsciously started to wander along the beautifully pale body.

A white tank top allowed her eyes to soak in the muscles of the woman's shoulders, arms, and neck. The blue sports bra, that wasn't completely covered by the tank top straps, just made Fang focus on the area more. But after a quick moment her gaze lowered. Stomach muscles tightened as legs were lifted horizontally. Even under a layer of clothing Fang could still tell that they were well defined muscles. It also helped that a portion of the woman's tank top started to slide up her torso as she repeated the exercise. From this morsel of skin showing between the shirt and the blue shorts Fang could see a nice cut between the hip bone and abs. Her eyes were attracted once again to the iPod that was tucked in nicely beside the creamy hip. Legs moved back down and quickly came back up, staying straight at the knee the whole time, toes always pointed. There was a nice, shadowed line between the quadriceps and hamstring muscles of the upper leg, made visible by the short (but not skimpy) shorts the woman was wearing.

Fang's breathing unconsciously started to deepen as her mind got lost at the sight of the spectacular female specimen in front of her. Eyes started to wander back up the body, noticing things that had been skimmed over before – things she had acknowledged in the months before, but which she seemed to have forgotten about until this moment. Like the strong vein in the woman's forearm.

Fang had always had a thing for veins. Oh, Shiva, help me...

Green eyes started to look further up at the sunset-pink hair and the asymmetric cut it used to frame her face. This scan from head to toe, and back to head, only took a few seconds to take in the beauty of the long, slender, and athletic frame. It finally ended by looking at the crystal blue eyes. Fang had never seen eyes this light of blue that still managed to seem too bright. Looking directly into them was like being dropped into ice-water, it was a shock to the body and made lungs tighten.

It was this shock to her body that made her realize that the woman was looking directly at her. By this point Fang was only fifteen feet away, her trajectory heading straight for the woman. Cool blue eyes gave Fang a questioning look and pink-brown eyebrows lowered.

Fang's confident stride staggered when she realized she had been caught by the woman she was so hungrily gazing at. She averted her line of sight, no longer being able to handle the blue-eyed glare. Fang's olive brown skin tone couldn't conceal the flush appearing on her cheeks – a redness that hadn't appeared since she was a teenager.

Fuck! Fang thought as she went to a spontaneous plan B. She changed the angle of her walk slightly, eyes down as she passed the woman. Her cheeks flared further as she could feel the blue eyes still trained on her, but the woman still continuing with her exercise, which Fang was thankful for.

Just to the machine next to the woman was an older man, a man that Fang had been getting to know since joining this gym. His name was Sazh. He had dark skin and a good sized afro.

"What's up, Sazh?" Fang asked as she reached the spot in front of him. The redness in her cheeks starting to subdue slightly, but not nearly as much as she would like.

"Same old, same old," he replied, giving her a smile. "This body of mine isn't getting any younger, but what can I do?" he asked not really expecting an answer. He continued to do some toe-raisers with a machine adding weight to his shoulders for resistance. He slowly used his calf muscles to raise his heals up, hold it for a second, and then slowly lower his body before starting again.

Fang guffawed. "You're not that old, man!" Her mind was only slightly taken off of the woman that was still near by, but out of sight. The brunette found it ridiculous that she hadn't been able to talk to her, got caught staring, and made a fool out of herself. Her pride had been slapped by someone she didn't know, something she wasn't sure had ever happened before. Sure, she had been made a fool before, but she had never cared much about it.

"Hey now. Don't judge until you've been a mile in my worn shoes."

There is no winning with this man when it comes to talking about his age, Fang thought. She decided to change the subject. "How was your weekend?"

"It was good. My son and I went to the zoo – one of his favorite places. He loves seeing the newly born chocobos. It took a lot of convincing to make him realize that we couldn't take one home with us." He laughed at the end.

"Those are cute little chicks," she said thinking of the yellow, little puffballs that grew into human-sized birds. When they were fully grown they could eat just about anyone out of house and home.

"Indeed, they are," agreed Sazh. "But not really something we can take care of at the moment."

"Haha, yeah, of course."

"How was your weekend?" Sazh politely asked the question back.

"It was good. Nothing too exciting happened, though."

"I find that unlikely. You were probably out partying with some girlfriends of yours."

"Ha! I can hardly get one girlfriend, let alone multiple!" Fang said this a bit louder than she had wanted. Her face turned a bit red again as she hoped the woman behind her couldn't hear her, hoping the music she was listening to was drowning out the sound of her voice.

"Oh, come on, "Sazh was a bit exasperated, "I'm sure you have friends you go and do stuff with."

Fang realized that she had mistook his words to mean something else. Why do people use the same word for two different things? she thought angrily. She doesn't like that some people use the same word for friends that are girls and when someone is romantically involved with a girl. She lamented that she hadn't figured out which meaning he had meant by the context of his sentence, It's quite obvious. She mentally smacked her forehead with her palm.

"Oh, yeah, of course," she tried to recover, waving her hand dismissively. Fang could tell that the "old" man found her reaction a bit odd, a little bit off. She could see the change in his eyes and facial features as realization hit him, he stopped exercising. His head nodded once slightly and the ends of his closed mouth widened as he smiled slightly. She took it as his way of saying that he didn't care. This subject had been something they had never discussed before. She continued with what she was going to say as he continued lifting and lowering his body. "But I just stayed at home, taking care of my room mate since she had started to get sick." Fang shrugged her shoulders, it was no big deal.

"That was nice of you."

Fang shrugged her shoulders. "Well, I better finish my workout so I can get home and pop some soup in the microwave for dinner."

"Alright, have a good night. I hope your room mate gets feeling better."

"Thanks, you too. See ya later," Fang said and then started walking the way that she had come, her eyes focused steadily on the far wall of the room – she didn't trust herself to look at the pink haired woman again so soon.

Lightning dropped her bag on the chair in her apartment's small living room. She also wished that she could drop into it... or onto my bed. She was tired, but she needed to get dinner started so she'd have it done by the time her sister, Serah, got home. It was Monday night, the night that her little sister had her early evening class at the local university. The only night that the older sister was in charge of dinner and she liked to make sure she did it well enough that her sister wouldn't feel the need to take that night's cooking over as well. It's the least she could do.

Long legs started walking towards the kitchen area of the room – the entrance, living room, and kitchen being smushed into one area of the abode. Beside the stove was the usual piece of paper. It was the instructions and ingredients needed to make the meal. Serah usually picked what dinner was to be made and left the paper for it by the stove before she left for school in the mid-morning, hours after Lightning had already left.

Lightning noted that it looked like Serah had printed off this recipe from the Internet earlier today. Every now and again the younger sister would like to try something new, but she'd usually make it herself instead of having Lightning make it the first time. I guess this time she thinks I won't screw it up.

A pot was taken out of a cupboard, spoons, spatulas, measuring cups, and ingredients from the fridge and other cabinets soon lay next to it. Another look at the recipe told her how to get started making the beef stroganoff.

The website that Serah printed it from told her how long it should take (about one hour and forty minutes, giving me twenty minutes to spare before Serah should be home), how many servings it made (four), and that the serving amount had been changed from the original recipe, but the cooking time was still for the original amount (six to eight servings). Lightning also noted that Serah had handwritten some changes to the recipe at the bottom of the page, also explaining that she read some comments on the recipe and wanted to try some things that someone had suggested. Lightning sighed and exchanged the cream cheese for the sour cream from the fridge, along with some other things. This also explained why she couldn't find some of the original ingredients in the fridge. She was glad that Serah chooses and shops for the meals on Saturday or Sunday, making sure that they have everything that they would need.

First, Lightning needed to cut the beef into about inch cube pieces. Her precision with a knife served her well here. How she got so good with a blade she wasn't quite sure. Natural talent, I guess. She was quickly done slicing the chunk of meat, so she moved onto chopping some onion.

She began filling the pot with the beef as her thoughts began to wander to what happened an hour ago at the gym. Was she staring at me?.. of course she was, what else could she have been doing? An image flashed in her mind, first with Fang's eyes on her lower body and then staring into her eyes. She had such an intense gaze. ...One fourth cup beef broth, she thought as she poured the closest thing to her into the measuring cup and then the pot. Was it an "I'm interested in you" stare or a "I don't like you, back off" stare? ...One can of Condensed Golden Mushroom soup... She was definitely checking me out. A smirk appeared unconsciously on her face. Her eyes seemed way too busy looking at my body to be pissed off at me. ...One half cup chopped onion... Ha! Lightning remembered Fang's reaction to getting caught. She definitely blushed!

A thought formed in the back of her head, hardly a conscious one that had actual words put to it. It was an image of a blush forming on the brunette's cheeks. Lightning felt an immediate attraction towards her – more so than before. It was cute. It was not "cute," she started to battle with herself. One tablespoon Worcestershire sauce... Ugh, she was getting tired denying her interest in this woman. Another image came uncontrollably to her mind. This time it was the woman's tan, tone arms as the woman swaggered towards her in a t-shirt that had the sleeves cut off. Lightning mentally licked her lips, but then physically shook her head as she tried to focus again on the ingredients before her. ...One fourth cup water. She reached over to the sink and turned on the tap and partially filled the plastic measuring cup. The chunky mixture in the pot was getting more and more voluminous, but it still didn't fill very much of it.

The tired woman looked back at the recipe paper and read through the top list. Water was the penultimate ingredient on it, with only the cream cheese (sour cream) listed behind it because it would be added in just before serving. Blue eyes then lowered to Serah's handwriting. The second change to the recipe was to switch out the ¼ cup water for ¼ cup beef broth...

"Shit!"

Did I already put beef broth in? And I just put in water? Lightning gripped the counter, trying to remember what she had done. What's done is done, she thought and then sighed.

Pale arms quickly moved to finish putting in the couple of ingredients that were left and turned on the stove to what seemed like the appropriate heat and set a timer to just a little bit below what was recommended for the original recipe.

She had about an hour of time to kill before she would have to start working on the beef stroganoff again. Lightning quickly moved back to the chair in the living room where her backpack was. A heavy textbook was pulled out of the black bag. A few seconds later the couch was laid upon; Lightning's back against the armrest as her feet almost touched the other one. There wasn't much room in the apartment to accommodate a longer couch.

The book was opened up to where the blue piece of paper lay between its white pages. Lightning settled further into the couch, lowering her back against the soft armrest and bending her legs at the knee so she could more easily prop the thick text book against them. Muscles finally relaxed as she began to read for her genetics class. It was a basic chapter on chromosomes, something which she had already learned about a couple of times in the past, which made the reading easier, but still not exactly simple.

A sizzle was heard coming from the pot. I hope I didn't screw up dinner too much. Serah will be not too pleased if I did. Her thoughts then wandered back to the woman, almost where her thoughts had left off. This time it was the lady's hips as they swayed back and forth were the focus of her thoughts. Her bright blue eyes were slowly hidden behind her eyelids.

AN:

Jan. 15, 2012
Hey, guys! Wow! Thanks for all the reviews, favorites, and alerts that you guys gave me for the first chapter! It means a lot and helps to keep me motivated (see a couple paragraphs below).

I wrote most of this chapter about a week ago, but then school started again and I was usually too tired at night to work on it until now. I made a goal that I'd get it done by today – technically I still have like 22 hours to get it up, but I don't want to wait and delay any longer. I just finished writing it, but feel too tired to proofread right now – I'll do it in the morning... later in the morning. So I'm sorry if you're reading it before then and there happens to be a lot of mistakes (which I honestly doubt, but it could happen). Feel free to/please point them out.

I don't want to leave another multichapter fic hanging. Being honest, I don't have enough inner motivation to keep it going, I need help from you guys. Reviews, favs, and alerts always help. But I also came up with an idea; you scratch my back, I scratch yours. I've recently finished reading The Inheritance Cycle (Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, and Inheritance) and went to see if there was any Arya femslash fanfics... there's not many :( which I'm very sad about. So, if any of you guys write a decent Arya femslash fic (I think I'd prefer Arya x Nasuada), give me a PM. I'll then update this story within a week/week and a half. Considering that I've gone months (a year) w/o updating a story, this should greatly hurry the story along. Give it a thought... please! I'm pretty sure that if I had realized, and accepting, my 'strange' attraction to her character when I first read Eragon then I would have probably realized I was gay a lot earlier, haha.

Sorry for the long AN.