Holly leaned her weight onto her left foot, tucking stray strands of hair behind her ear. She pointed a hooked smile in Artemis's direction as he struggled to replace the clip around the fine-grain loaf he had finally managed to find in his pantry. As Artemis hacked off two slices and placed them into the toaster, she examined her cuticles.
'Anytime now,' she drawled. 'How are you going to survive on your own, if you can't even make a girl breakfast, honestly?'
'Butler will continue to be in my service when I leave Fowl Manor,' Artemis replied frostily, taking two attempts to push down the lever.
'That'll impress your girlfriends, I'm sure.' Holly's smirk widened as Artemis appeared to look impressive with the dials and settings.
'You could make your own breakfast,' he suggested, gesturing to the toaster. 'Better yet, you could have gone back to Haven last night, and had whatever gourmet meals you can afford.'
'S'more fun this way,' she explained, petting him on the top of his head like a hapless kitten. 'Besides, the flares were being unpredictable. You wouldn't want me burning to a crisp would you?'
'Burning?' Artemis repeated, deadpan. Holly sniffed, and acrid smoke pervaded her nostrils.
Just then, the toaster exploded. Artemis stumbled back in shock, while Holly cast wildly around for a fire blanket or extinguisher.
'Ever heard of fire-safety?' she shot disparagingly at Artemis, looking around for a dry tea towel. The high-pitched squeal of a fire-alarm accosted her eardrums. This seemed to startle Artemis out of his shock. He reached around her suddenly, hitting a small red button on the alarm systems. Streams of liquid foam poured down from the ceiling,
In a matter of seconds, they smothered the flames lapping at Artemis's ornamental ceiling, but they also drenched the room itself. The foam plastered Holly's clothes to her frame, covering her with thick, white suds. Holly sloshed through the puddles on the floor to shut off the fire-alarm, soaking the hems of her tights.
Wiping the froth away from her face, she threw a questioning look at Artemis. In response, he waded towards a small drawer and picked out a dark cloth. Holly took glee in that he was as soaked as she was.
'That would've been useful about half a minute ago,' she remarked. 'Not so much now.'
She snatched it away and dried her face and air, before whipping it back at him and leaving the room. He joined her in the lounge a few moments later, where the slush from the kitchen leeched wetness into the carpet immediately adjoining it.
'Yeah,' she began. 'That went … well.'
Artemis raised an eyebrow at her, and he looked so comical, his hair dripping wet and droplets falling from his nose, that she could not contain herself. She tried to muffle her lather with her hand, but ended up clutching her stomach as her amusement redoubled at his expression.
She flounced towards Artemis, wiping a bubble off the tip of his nose, kissing it lightly on impulse. Immediately, she felt her cheeks flush, and she took half a step backward, opening her mouth to stutter an apology.
Damnit, damnit. This is not an appropriate time for your hormones to get the better of you! He's the teenager here, not you!
Truth be told, Holly had felt herself become trapped up in her mind for far too long, ever since their return from Hybras. For a Recon officer, this was quite an unsettling sensation, like she was removed from the world around her - too much in her head, not enough in her heart. Foolishly, for a moment, she'd thought Artemis might have shared that almost crippling feeling, that they could snap each other out of it … Stupidity.
Slowly, he reached out and brushed his thumb against her lips. She collapsed into his embrace, her cheek pressed against the coolness of his shirt, hands clutching it at the back. For a while, he held her, she held him.
'We should go get changed,' she mumbled eventually. He nodded.
'I have some clothes that might fit you,' he said, an inscrutable expression crossing his features. 'Come upstairs.'
Artemis handed her a small black button-up top (possibly, Holly hazarded, because he owned no T-shirts) and a pair of Juliet's ¾ length jeans (the first ones he'd grabbed upon venturing into her room). Unselfconsciously, Holly pulled her own shirt over her head, well aware that her sports bra covered everything over-modestly. Artemis however, appeared to be extremely unsettled by this, turning around quickly and averting his eyes to stare resolutely at the floor. Rolling her own eyes, Holly slipped into Juliet's jeans, and tapped him on the shoulder.
'You can look now, I'm all covered up.' She looked down at herself for a moment, running her palms over her stomach and thighs. 'I'm not that bad looking, am I?' she joked, somewhat as a tension-breaker and the remainder to gauge his reaction.
'No,' he correct hurriedly, not looking at her again. 'You are. Just…'
'Come off it,' Holly laughed easily. 'You've seen Juliet in a bikini haven't you?'
'You are not Juliet,' Artemis replied quietly, and Holly's expression sobered.
'If this is about that kiss, then don't worry about it, I didn't mean anything by it,' she reassured him, smiling a little. 'Kinda like after Hybras, yeah?' Holly undid the last two buttons of the shirt, tying the ends in a knot at her navel, trying to make it dwarf her less.
'Obviously my hormones aren't under as much control as I previously stipulated,' Artemis muttered.
Holly retied the knot, tugging at it forcefully, her concentration elsewhere than his words. 'Hm? What do you mean?'
'I mean,' Artemis said a little too loudly, 'that perhaps I want you to mean something by it.'
Holly stopped fiddling and fixed him with a quixotic look. 'Seriously?'
'I do not joke about such things,' he told her, his face definitely not comical.
He doesn't know what he's getting himself into, she reasoned. He'll just get scared off and I'll just get hurt. Here, watch.
'Should take that shirt off,' she heard herself saying.
She buttoned it, so that it gaped open at the front – and Artemis didn't move despite that her hands shaking made it take twice as long as it might have usually. She slipped her fingers underneath the fabric, the pressed her palms against his skin, running over his chest lightly. She felt his skin raise into goose bumps, but he did not step away. She skimmed blunt-cut nails over his back and sides, made tiny circle with her thumbs on his stomach, wondering when he would push her away, realise that this was something physical, affectionate…
'I know,' he said, placing his hands over hers.
'Know?' Holly asked, something constricting her throat inexplicably.
'Physicality, affection,' he repeated her thoughts to her, and she realises she had spoken out loud. 'I can do better than that,' he added.
'How much better?'
He kissed her then, and she thought she heard him murmur something against her lips.
As you might have gathered, I'm very with the fluff and romanticism. This is mostly because when I'm in a bad mood, I tend to write hopelessly sappy things and also to want to read hopelessly sappy things as well. Thought I might help anyone looking for that same thing, and so this incredibly shippy collection is born. I'd really like it if you're even reading this to drop in a review, it really motivates me to keep updating. Thank you.