Chapter VI: Disorganizated


The heat of the sun and the stickiness of dried ink on the sheets are the first things I feel when I wake up, raising my head slightly and putting a hand in front of my face to block the rays of light. A weight is on my chest and I look down to see Scurry still asleep on top of me, my mind not remembering turning onto my front. Instead of going into the usual analysis, I simply stop caring for a moment and try to get up. Her body keeps pushing me back into bed despite my efforts and when I try to nudge her off, she tightens her arms around my neck and smiles up at me. "Scurry, I need to close the blinds. Get off me for a second," I whisper but her response is to lift herself to eye level and rub her cheek against mine, rubbing her body against mine the entire way.

I don't try to convince her further, tossing the sticky blankets off of us and sighing to myself when I see the stains. Explaining why the sheets are like this to the others are gonna be awkward...whatever... Slowly, I manoeuvre us so that I can sit on the edge of the bed, Scurry yawning lazily on my lap before rubbing her cheek against mine again and kissing me a few times. I yawn in return when she's done kissing me, still tired from yesterday and wondering how many hours we actually slept last night given how rowdy we got. What came over us? I can't believe we did that... Standing up is difficult with the extra weight of another inkling but once up, it doesn't feel too difficult. A few steps away from the bed, however, I stumble under the extra weight and nearly dump us both onto the floor. As I take time to right myself, Scurry smirks at my clumsiness and whispers the word smooth.

It's a slow balancing act to the window but once there, my right-hand leaves Scurry's back to yank the cord for the blinds, the blinds descending with a hiss and lowering the light level in the room drastically. With eyes readjusting to the new amount of light, Scurry's weight finally becomes too much and I'm forced to turn around and take a seat against the wall, my rear thumping against the floor as Scurry lands on me. "Ha! Nice try but you fail at being romantic," she responds sarcastically, my eyes rolling in response to her outburst. "So much for us being nice to each other," I retort and her face meets mine with a smile to kiss me on the lips further. She does her best to tempt me into another passionate exchange before I lightly push her away, cyan ink dribbling down my lip. "Remember the mission. We need to get ready," I state as I rub the ink away from my lip with a hand, my head starting to swim as deviant thoughts start to enter. All I have to do is push my body closer-

A hand goes to my head as I smirk and blush, saying to her in dismay, "What did you do to me?" Scurry smiles darkly at me and kisses me a few more times, my body yearning to give in before she moves back and says, "I just gave you some affection and it's having side effects on you." She pokes my forehead lightly with a finger, a wicked smile now on her face at how deviant she was being. "It should be an interesting couple of days after this..." she whispers and kisses me again, my arms wrapping around her and almost pulling her towards me before I stop myself and sigh in desperation, lowering my head is dismay. Of course, our exchange had strings attached. Why did I think sharing ink with another would be that easy?

"Am I interrupting something?" says a familiar voice, my head jerking quickly to the source of the voice as my smile drops in an instant. Marie is standing nearby with a hand over her mouth, obviously confused at the sight in front of her. "Oh...you and...well, I just...came in to make...make sure you're...OK...but you seem fine now." Well, this is awkward...sitting naked on the floor with my sister draped over me... Scurry doesn't notice or care, keeping her focus on me and trying to get intimate again while I'm distracted by kissing and licking me on the cheek and neck. The situation becomes doubly awkward when I notice Callie snickering in the doorway of the room.

"Zapfish! You guys really did share ink, didn't you?...Can I get some photos?" My brow raises in surprise as Callie has her squidphone in her hand immediately but Marie is quick to cut her off. "Alright, give them their privacy. Well be back when you're...done," she states as Callie tries to protest by saying that we owe her for yesterday but is quickly overwritten as she's shoved back into the hallway. I watch them go and wait till they close the door before saying, "You think a sign will work?" I have to stop Scurry's advances to get her answer of no. "Some sort of barricade?" Another no from her. "What about-"

"You really think obstacles will keep an Agent away?" she whispers, breaking through my guard and kissing me a few times before I can stop her. Before I can respond to anything else, I groan in frustration as the door slides open again and Whinter's head pops into the room, his eyes noticing the scene and making him move out of the room rapidly. Clementine peaks in after Whinter, holding my gaze for a second with something akin to scorn and following Whinters example of exiting the room.

I just shrug since I didn't have an explanation for myself, let alone them. "So what happens now?" I ask Scurry, her response to smirk at me and kiss me again. My resistances finally break down and I let it happen, pulling her closer and kissing her thoroughly in an attempt to make her stop but only eliciting her responses to be more passionate. "What do you think? We get clean and dressed," she whispers between kisses but she makes no moves to do either task, stopping her affection long enough to stare at me with that smirk. "I have to carry you to the bathroom, don't I?" I groan, not surprised when she braces her arms and legs around me. "Yeah, so hop to it," she giggles while trying to go for more kisses, my hand moving over my mouth to stop her. I'm not sure I'm into being ordered around or having these urges running around inside me. Everything is happening so quickly and Scurry has gone from yelling at me frequently to trying to seduce me. As I rise to my feet trying to do as she asks, I stumble again and have to brace myself against the wall. Scurry is quick to giggle and taunt with, "C'mon, Kosh. Lift with your legs."

"I'm lifting with my legs! You aren't so light, you know!" I retort angrily but her response is to bite me on the shoulder and I wince at the pain of her teeth shredding skin and drawing ink. "That's for calling me heavy," she says menacingly as she shows me her teeth now painted with some of my ink, my body stumbling again from minor pain. Once I'm comfortable with my balance and am sure that she isn't going to unbalance me immediately, I push away from the wall and take slow, careful steps across the room to the bathroom. Using my foot, I nudge open the paper door to the bathroom since I didn't have any free hands. "You should get a new hairstyle," she says playfully as we enter the bathroom, for which I quickly respond evenly, "Don't push it."

My first observation on entering the bathroom is that the ink bucket is gone. Someone must have come in while Scurry and I were passed out. The idea that we had been so exhausted that someone waltzed into the room unnoticed doesn't make me feel comfortable. All of these thoughts are overwritten when we look at the tub. "How am I going to select the ink for the bathtub if I can't use my hands?" I ask Scurry who responds by stretching her left hand out towards the bath fixture, nearly unbalancing me in the process. She gives me the order to move closer and I slowly move her closer until she can put her hand on the ink scanner of the bath fixture. A chime sounds as the tub starts to fill with cyan ink, both of us watching as it fills.

"You can put me down now," she says playfully and the temptation to just drop her into the tub is great. Instead, I place her in the tub gently with the sound of displacing ink but as I turn to walk out of the bathroom, her hand grabs my wrist and stops my progress. "Whoa, whoa! Where do you think you're going!?" she exclaims, my head turning to her in surprise to see her face displaying a grin. That smile hasn't left her face...was what we did really that life-changing? "To let you bathe in peace and quiet?" I say nervously but her head shakes no at my answer. "Who said I wanted peace and quiet? Get in here," she commands, giving my wrist a solid pull and draping me over the lip of the tub. I sigh in response and state in frustration, "Alright, alright. You don't have to get that bossy."

Although we share the same ink colour, I make sure nothing terrible happens by dipping my right hand into the ink. Nothing happens to the hand but as a snarky response, Scurry licks her finger and presses it against the skin on my arm, mouthing a sizzling sound of ink singing skin. I smile at the antic, sarcastically saying, "Very funny, Scurry."

"Oh, lighten up. We've already shared ink several times and slept in the same bed together. What are you being all embarrassed for?" she states with a smile, gesturing for me to hurry up as I climb into the tub with her and find the situation surprisingly intimate. My smile remains as I say to her, "Just making sure I don't catch ink sickness from your bad sense of humour." She smiles as she splashes some ink from the tub into my face, my head trying to turn out of the way but too slowly. "And here I'm trying to be nice," she gloats back at me but I barely hear it as some of the ink gets into my left eye before I can fully close it, forcing me to rub the eye frantically to get the ink out.

Scurry chuckles nervously as she adds, "You still can't see under ink? I thought you'd gotten over that?" I give an angry growl as I rub my eye, retorting loudly, "No, I haven't gotten over that! I can't get over something that my body has!" I blink a few times to allow my vision to clear, one eye slightly blurry as it adjusts. We swim in ink for most of our time yet I can't see out of one eye under it...I'm flawed... The depressing thought comes riding in unannounced and my face mirrors the grimness of my thoughts. I'm flawed...both stale and flawed...normally that doesn't bother me...

My mood sours as the thought drains my happiness to replace it with sadness, my gaze now unable to meet Scurries out of irrational shame. Is she still going to make fun of me for my flaws? Why does that scare me now? It only lasts a few seconds because Scurry pulls herself closer to me, our bodies touching as she embraces me tightly. "I'm sorry...I didn't mean to make you sad..." she whispers, using her face to push mine around to face her. The event stuns me because it has never happened before, my confused eyes meeting hers to find them genuinely sorry. Apologizing? She never apologizes... A sigh escapes me as I return her embrace wholeheartedly, whispering to her while rubbing her back, "It's alright. Just don't do it again, OK?" She gives me a gentle nod as she moves her head over my shoulder, my hands starting to rub her back as she moves her head lower to brush my neck with her cheek.

I have to force myself to focus before instincts take over, physically moving Scurry back by the shoulders to her visible disappointment. Focus. We're here for a reason. Letting go of her and cupping my hands, I scoop some of the ink from the tub and start scrubbing her hair tentacles with it, watching the strange reaction of ink absorbing into her hair tentacles and fixing any discolouration. I'd never seen this from the outside before... "Hey, that tickles," she giggles, starting to do the same to me as we both smile at each other and start bathing one another. I move my hands lower, scrubbing her shoulders, her arms, and underarms. "You missed a spot," she says as she pulls away from me, exposing her front to my blushing embarrassment. I move a little too slowly when I start to rub her front, my mind trying to focus even as I touch her chest. Just yesterday, she was shoving me face first into the ink and now we're bathing in the same tub and scrubbing each other.

The stinging pain of Scurry biting my hand playfully returns me back to the present, my eyes focusing to realize that I had started to rub her face. "Now that I have your attention, get back to scrubbing," she says mockingly, moving her hands to scrub my sides as I move back to scrubbing her front. As soon as she reaches low enough, however, she starts to rub my crotch and I gasp at the sudden stimulus. "Hey...not here..," I protest as I remove her hand but Scurry just switches hands, forcing me to stop both of her hands to the growing irritation on her face. "What's the deal?! You were really into it yesterday and now you aren't?!" she shouts at me, forcing her hands out of my grip with a swift tug. There's some shock on my face at her yelling but its replaced by seriousness. "I told you we need to remember the mission now. Celebrate after it's done, not before," I try to explain but she just growls at me, the mood souring as it becomes clear to her that I won't allow us to share ink in the tub. Both of us now clean ourselves instead and she finishes cleaning herself first, climbing out of the tub and shaking the excess ink off her body before walking out of the bathroom and leaving me to clean up the mess.

A few minutes go by before I get out of the tub, grabbing a towel to dry myself off and cleaning off any surfaces stained with ink. More laundry for later. Scurry isn't in the room when I slide the bathroom door open, probably going downstairs to get breakfast. I shake my head when I see the state of the room with the bed a mess and clothes tossed on the floor. And she wonders why I want to show restraint...how many times did we share ink in one night?

I spend some time gathering up the ink-stained sheets and throwing them in a basket in the corner along with the dirty clothes and the towel I'm holding. With the room relatively in order, I move to the closet to grab a shirt and a pair short off a hanger, slipping them on quickly so I can rejoin the others. I chuckle to myself when I start thinking of how wild it would have been if our intimate moments had reached all corners of the room instead of staying contained on the bed. Am I that crazy? Am I capable of that? I don't know but I guess I'll find out in time.

Not bothering to fix the bed since most of the sheets are dirty in a basket, I do a quick double-check of the room and find it in order. My right-hand slides open the hallway door to find Clementine outside, her face staring at me with hostility. "We need to talk," she states in a stern voice as she sees me and I nod my head in response. "Yeah, there's a mission briefing that we're probably missing. I'm about to head downstairs too," I say calmly as I turn to the stairway but she stops me with a hand on my chest, her face a neutral mask as she keeps me from going downstairs. "We need to talk about you and Scurry," she states in a commanding tone that brooks no argument but I'm thankful she's to the point even as I sign at the sudden question. "Alright...what do we need to talk about?"

"Did you share ink last night with Scurry?" she asks immediately, my brow raised at the immediate accusation. Very forward of her. I simply answer yes because she probably knew the answer already. It isn't like I can deny her accusation since everyone saw us this morning. Her face remains neutral as she continues with her accusations. "Might I ask what you were thinking? Not only is there a taboo about sharing ink with a relative but you also shared ink with a fellow Agent." I force myself to remain neutral but inwardly, I'm rolling my eyes. Right...she hasn't shared ink with Whinter...maybe I assumed too much when I thought the others will understand... I try to stop the conversation by changing the topic. "Let's talk about this after we get the mission briefing. Everyone else is waiting, right?" It surprises me when she shakes her head no while keeping her neutral expression, her next words catching me off guard.

"There is no mission."