Eight really likes looking at Three. ... Which, objectively, is a weird thing to say! But, then again, you also have to put yourself in Eight's shoes, because Eight has totally swapped spit with Three a few times and also slept in her bed and is dating her. So. Yeah. Maybe a little less weird?
Hm... No. Still kinda feels weird.
Whatever! That's stupid semantics. And logic. And some other word that ends in -ic, like arsenic or something like that.
You can't really blame Eight, can you?
Eight - who is supposedly reading a book - is currently curled up in Three's bedsheets, waiting for her to finally finish doing whatever and also ogling Three across the room like a creep.
Her eyes trail down from Three's mantle, following the line of her back. Her muscles ripple beneath her skin with each movement, hypnotizingly beautiful. The light, however dim, still illuminates the room, casting a golden glow on Three's frame. Eight's eyes trail back up and Three moves just so and the light shines off something that catches Eight's eye.
Her piercings.
Three has a lot of them, really. Maybe too many, but she makes it work.
And Eight? Eight thinks they're pretty. Alluring. Captivating. Simply put, she loves them. She loves running her fingers over them and feeling the metal against the rest of Three's flesh. She loves the way they look and how they catch the light.
Plus, Three has so many. You'd think with twenty-two extra holes in your body - well, that was how many Three claimed she had when Eight last asked, but Eight thinks the number is higher than that - you'd look like a pincushion or something, which, well, Three probably does, but like, bad pincushion and not sexy pincushion.
... Okay, sexy might be a bit of an overstatement for Three. No offense, but Eight has the feeling that Three has never attempted to be sexy before in her life. Maybe it has to do with the fact that Three still freaks out when she sees Eight without a shirt on.
There's not even anything to hide! There is nothing sexual about a chest. Eight's tried to explain that to Three before, but Three never listens. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but probably not.
"Hey, Three?" Eight says, breaking the silence.
"Hm?" Her lower gill piercings gleam in the light as she continues rummaging through her dresser.
"How much did your piercings hurt?" she asks.
Three flounders her way into a shirt and turns around. "Uh... Depends on the piercing. Why, you want one?"
Eight shrugs. "I guess so, yeah."
Three pauses, bites her lip, and turns a very dark orange. "Um. Okay. Yeah! Yeah, sure. I. Yes. I, uh. Am not. Objecting to that, uh. At all." She claps her hands together, grinning in a terribly awkward manner. "Yeah. Okay. What, uh. What do you want?"
"Mmmh..." Eight hums as she thinks. An ear piercing could be nice - Eight's heard they weren't too painful, and she's had them before, even though they (and a chunk of her flesh) were torn out sometime before she escaped. Still, she doesn't remember getting them. Thanks, amnesia! And, well, she thinks getting a similar piercing (or, piercings) on her other ear would look kind of weird. Maybe it's got some kind of cultural relevance? Heck if Eight knows! "What do you think I should get?"
"Weeeell..." Three looks Eight over and furrows her brow. "Are there any you don't want?"
Eight runs a finger over her ear. "I had piercings here at some point, but they're kind of, um... Gone." Three makes a face. "So I think it'd look dumb if I got them on the other side."
Slowly, Three nods. "Yeah, that. That, uh. Would probably look a little stupid." Clearing her throat, she asks, "Anything else..?"
"I don't want the exact same piercings as you." Three cocks an eyebrow. "Like, obviously I can't not get the same body part pierced as you since the only thing you probably haven't pierced is your genitals and I don't want a needle there." Three's tentacles ripple a dark green, but her face remains neutral. Sadly, Eight is not fluent in color. "But I mean, I don't want the same, um... Type? Like, I don't want to match with you exactly, if that makes any sense."
Three sucks in an inward breath. "That, uh... That's gonna be hard."
"How many piercings do you have, exactly..?"
Three pauses and counts. "Twenty-four."
"... Since when?"
"A day or so after the party," she replies, sliding the dresser drawer shut. Walking over to the bed, she continues, "It's just a spider bite. You did notice, right..?"
Three takes a seat and Eight takes a good long stare at her face. After a few seconds of Eight not saying anything, Three sighs.
"You really didn't notice?" She taps a little bit below two rings beside each other on her bottom lip. "I wanted to get a tongue web piercing too, but I figured that'd be too much to deal with at once."
"I thought you always had those," Eight mumbles. They're pretty, at least, although Eight's a little biased. "Have they healed yet?"
She shakes her head. "Nah. I'd say, uh... Two more weeks and I should be good."
"Is that why you've been hesitant to kiss me?" Three nods. Eight sighs. "I wish you just told me."
"... Alright, sorry. I'll tell you next time." She lies down next to Eight, who wraps an arm around her. "But, uh... Yeah. I can hook you up with my piercer sometime once you decide what you want. He's a good guy, so I wouldn't worry."
"Thank you, Three," she says quietly. She rolls over to turn off the lamp, leaving the two in darkness. "I'll tell you whenever I think of anything, okay?"
"Sure." A few seconds pass. "... Hey, Eight?"
"Mh?"
"... Can you share some of the blankets, please? You're hogging all of them."
"Just this once."
"Gee, thanks," she scoffs. Eight can picture her rolling her eyes. She pulls some of the blankets over onto Three, who shifts a little as she gets comfy.
"You're welcome, you butt."
When Pearl opens the door, Eight is staring at her bedroom wall like some weird philosophy guy.
"What," she starts, "Are you doing?"
Eight realizes that she probably looks kind of weird right now. It could be the fact that she's staring at her wall. Or it could be the fact that the wall is covered with pictures of women's faces that are pinned there with thumbtacks. It could even be the fact that some of the pictures have big red X's drawn through them.
... That, or it's the 'Dinosaurs of Inkopolis' shirt.
It's probably the shirt.
"I don't know what kind of piercing I want," Eight explains. Gingerly, Pearl steps inside, gently shutting the door behind her. "I ruled out the ones I don't want, though."
"Why do you suddenly want a piercing?" Pearl asks. Eight stands up and crosses out two more. "I mean, I don't really have a problem with it, I just..."
"It's Three." Pearl narrows her gaze. "Relax. I just think she's nice to look at and I kind of just... Want one."
Pearl keeps her eyes trained on Eight for a few seconds then sighs. "... Okay. Uh, if you get one, I have some extra cleaning stuff I don't use anymore."
Absently, Eight nods. As Pearl turns around to leave, Eight asks, "Can you help me?"
She pauses and slowly turns to face her. "With, uh... With what?"
Eight sighs, slumping forward. "I don't know which one I want, still."
Pearl presses her hand to her face in thought, scanning the wall of pierced female faces. "Weeell... Which ones have you ruled out?"
"Ears," she states. "I don't want another upper ear piercing since I think it'd look weird, and I don't want my earlobes pierced because no one can see them."
"Okay..." Pearl shifts where she stands, staring intently at the woman wall before looking back at Eight. "You don't want your gills pierced, do you?"
"No, no!" Eight shudders at the thought. They'd have to hurt a lot, right? Sure, the different sounds would be helpful for determining which member is emitting which frequency, but there's at least a six month healing period for them and Eight very much doesn't want a bunch of needles there. "That'd be too painful, I think."
Relieved, Pearl sighs. "Oh, thank God. I don't know what I'd do if you wanted those."
"... You'd say no?" Eight offers. Pearl looks at her like she's stupid. "What..? That's what you'd do."
She shakes her head, briefly massaging her temples. "I... Whatever. Look, point is, you're not getting those. Every single person who has them are into, like, gillplay and all that weird kinky shit."
"Gillplay..?" Eight repeats, cocking her head to the side. She can easily piece the meaning together by the horrified expression Pearl gives her, blush and all. "What's that?"
"I- Uh, it's..." She clears her throat and shakes her head. "You know what, never mind."
"I'll just ask Three, then," she states, Pearl's mantle going bright green. "Hers are pierced, you know. I think they're pretty."
Pearl, who looks as if she's experiencing every emotion on the 'I want to die' scale, clears her throat loudly. "OKAY. Okay. I don't need to know about that. Like, at all. Please never talk to me about Three's gill piercings again."
"... Well, you were the one that brought it up." Even though Eight knows what gillplay is, she's still going to ask Three about it, just to see her make dying dishwasher noises and maybe turn into a squid. What a butt..! "Anyways, I don't want mine pierced."
"A... Alright." As Pearl's mantle fades back to its normal hue, she walks up to the board and taps a picture twice. "What do you, uh... Think about this one?"
Eight gives it a contemplative look. It's different than a normal look because it has question-y feelings behind it. She feels like some guy staring at modern art or something like that. Something that would piss Three off, because it would. Most things do, now that she thinks about it, but it's still kinda cute. Eight is hopelessly in gay, whatever gay means. She kind of gets it, but... Not really. Maybe she should start with understanding the gender binary.
"I could get it," she responds. Would it hurt a lot..? Not that pain is really much of an issue, either, because Eight is still kind of getting shot at for a living. The turfing industry sounds a lot more barbaric when she puts it like that, doesn't it? Still, Eight doesn't want her aesthetic stabbing to be more painful than it needs to be. Aesthetic acupuncture..? "Do you know how long it would take to heal?"
"I'm not really sure... Definitely more than a month, though." Hm. That could pose a problem. At the same time, maybe not too big of a problem? It's not like Eight's constantly rubbing her face against people all the time. She'd just have to take care of it... "I think it'd look nice on you, though."
"You do..?" Pearl nods. "... Maybe I'll get it, then."
"Do you know anything about Three's piercer?" she asks.
Eight pauses and shrugs. "I know that he's stabbed her at least twenty times."
Pearl snorts. "Okay, but do you know his name or... Anything about him?"
"Just that Three trusts him." Ripples of dark red spread throughout Pearl's mantle. "I don't know what that means, but I wouldn't stress too much over it."
"What if he's some back-alley crackhead?" she mutters beneath her breath. "Look, if you tell me who he is and everything, I'll let you go through with this."
What a Nurser.
"Okay," Eight mumbles with a sigh, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. "I'll get back to you, then."
Pearl nods and then turns to leave, hovering in the doorway for a few seconds.
"Okay," she finally says. "You don't mind helping me with dinner later, do you?"
Eight shakes her head no, texting Three.
You, 4:57 PM: Can you tell me anything about your piercer? Pearl wants to know.
While waiting for a reply, her phone buzzes in her hand. It's a text from Lucas.
Lucas, 4:57 PM: I haven't found anything about them where I living
You, 4:57 PM: You haven't?
Pearl leaves the room, door shutting behind her with a click.
You, 4:57 PM: It's okay. I wasn't expecting much anyways
Lucas, 4:58 PM: There are still the rest of Inkopolis though
Lucas, 4:58 PM: This is the big city after all
Lucas, 4:58 PM: Do not losing hope yet. We are trying our bests
You, 4:59 PM: Thanks, Lucas
As she turns her phone off, one last message flashes across the screen.
Lucas, 4:59 PM: It is the nothing, Lucille
Oh, how she hates that name.
it's been a month since i last updated this, hasn't it? i've been working on a 2.5 (technically work 3 in the series) work that's been uploaded on ao3. it's second person and contains some smut, both of which break the ffn guidelines, so i just haven't done anything here. it's nice to be back, at least!