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“Ohhhh, you guys think you’re soooo funny, huh?” Ricarda frowned, stopping them before they could leave. So long to the idea of slyly wearing the shirts.
“I am afraid we are unaware of what humor you are referring to,” Damia paused in front of Timberlyn. She loved the affectionate protection— but it was just their older sister, not someone out to kill them.
“Your shirts. We are not going out in those. You will go change. The both of you,” Richie reprimanded. Tim sighed, and tried to be the responsible one of the relationship.
Tim looped her arm with her girlfriend’s and tugged a bit, “Mia— come on. let’s just get changed so we’re not holding up the rest of the family. It’s not that big of a deal,” It was, Tim wanted to wear her shirt, she didn’t want to change, so she wouldn’t, and she wanted to match with her partner, so they would. Under Richie’s nose.
With a huff, Damia gave, turning around and pulled Tim along with her back up to their rooms. Tim let her lead, but made sure to tug them towards her room when the moment came. The little huffy noise Mia made in confusion put a small smile on Tim’s face— it was just so cute!
Tim didn’t respond to the unspoken question, however, just looking at her love with a twinkle in her eye.
A moment later, in Timberlyn’s room, Tim is ruffling through her clothes.
“Timber, you said we mustn’t keep the family waiting..?” Mia frowned, grabbing the edge of her shirt to take it off. Tim looked up at the question.
Tim squawked, covering her eyes, “Hey! Keep your clothes on,” she protested with a smile before she turned back to the pile of probably clean clothes and mumbled to herself, “I can’t believe I’m saying that— in what world—“
Retrieving a large cardigan for her love, she promptly tossed it over, and managed to unearth her own oversized jacket and got it on. Mia raised an eyebrow, but put the cardigan on as well, holding the collar up to smell.
“I am proud that you have at least one item that smells clean…” Mia teased, but the enchantment on her face were evident of her enjoyment to be sharing Tim’s clothes, her scent, her colors— wearing something she had bought— to be surrounded in her Timberly. Her Tim, Timber, her Lyn, her love.
“Yeah, yeah, let’s just get it buttoned, so Richie won’t see we’re keeping our shirts on,” Tim smiled, the twinkle back in her eye as she zipped up her own jacket and turned to help Mia, batting her hands away so that she could finish the last few top buttons.
Straightening it out, and hiding the collar of the prohibited t-shirt beneath the cardigan, Tim let her eyes flit to Mia’s lips, and then up to her eyes and then felt like she was lingering too long, looking too much. Mia moved before she could take a step back, leaning up and in to seal a kiss between them, dampening Tim’s self consciousness for the moment.
Timberlyn couldn’t help but smile into the kiss, and reciprocated by tugging the younger one flush, holding them close together by her waist. Damia broke the embrace, murmuring something about being time inefficient. Tim loved her so.
Picking her bag up off her bed again, Tim didn’t withhold her complements, despite the war of insecurity yelling that Mia was disgusted by her, the other side yelled louder, was fed more often— she lover her more than any fear, she felt. Tim’s obsession couldn’t be capped and kept in a bottle, it just exploded and spilt— the words came like water.
“You look good in my clothes— you should borrow from me more often,” Tim smiled feeling her small amount of restraint break, “What are the odds that I would notice something missing if you took it anyways— you look good in red… or any color. Or without any colors. That is to say, you should borrow my bed sometime, maybe. You would look good naked—“
“Understood, Drake, please let us get a move on before the others start looking for us,” Oh, so now Mia was the time efficient one. See her blush or not, Tim could tell her face was as red as her borrowed sweater. It was lovely to see Mia’s flicker of a smile, and dipping of her head, so bashful.
Tim let her have her way, and they both left the room, hand in hand.
Richie gave them a look— she was a teen once. She probably understood that they were just hiding their shirts, but she didn’t say anything.
It wasn’t long until they got to the ice rink— they, as in everyone single bat family member that they could wrangle in— and settled. Bags were put up, skates were on.
And Tim. Tim had been skating before obviously. She knew it would be way too warm to keep her jacket additional on… it was only reasonable! Sorry Richie, but you can’t blame Tim for taking it off and putting it up with the other items she didn’t need.
Skates, leggings, gloves, tasteful soft red turtleneck. And his shirt. White shirt with bold black lettering. And ear muffs!
Walking out of the locker space, he caught up with Damia, and pressed a kiss to her temple in excitement before leading the way to the ice rink.
If there was one thing Timberlyn Jackeline Drake could do, and loved to do, it was ice skate. It was something everyone could do— the lights, the cold, it was the same every year. Only if… It was was always beautifully nostalgic! It was painful. He never understood—
Damia squeezed their gloved hands together and Tim returned the notion, and swiftly they began skating side by side. She was playing with Damia’s hand for a moment, squeezing or pulling.
“Did you know that turnips and coffee stains can cause luminol to light up?”
“Isn’t that the stuff they use to detect stray amounts of blood on crime scenes?” Damia looked up, one eyebrow furrowed. Tim wanted to reach out and smooth it over, for no reason but to preform the action. Her hands would be freezing despite the gloves, and Damia probably wouldn’t appreciate that.
“Yeah— but no chemical is perfect. So even if it works for blood, there are other substances that can cause the chemical reaction. I’m fairly certain that there are research centers working to improve on luminol’s make up, as to prevent ‘false’ readings— or at least limit and narrow them down, you know?” Tim hummed, “It’s older than the lie detector test, but not by much. And it’s luminous quality actually wasn’t observed and recorded until even after that,”
“So, luminol was synthisized, the lie detector was invented, and then it was discovered that luminol could actually glow?”
Tim nodded, “With years between each break through, yeah,”
“Forensic art and solving crime with the help of art has been around for a long time. Since the 1800s, I think,” Damia offered, looking up at Tim. Man, there was a reason Tim loved Mia. She smiled, squishing Mia’s hand between them. She could just chew the girl up.
“Photography was made in the early 1800s, so I think that would check out,”
Damia took the lead in their skating, guiding them over to a wall for them to rest at the motion of Cassander, who was currently stood outside the boundary, leaning in towards them.
Tim was the one to pull them more fully to a stop, before gently bumping against the wall and grabbing the railing, “What’s up?”
“Have you had water?” He asked lowly, guiding a water bottle into Tim’s hand. In all honesty, she wasn’t sure about the last time she drank something, so she accepted it and released Mia’s hand from captivity just for the moment.
They take a short break, hydrate (the both of them do) and right as they’re about to return to skating, with Tim promising to actually show off some moves this time, they pass another couple.
Well, couple of people. They were holding hands, so Tim assumed they were also dating— just as Mia and she was— but friends also held hands and so she tried to not draw a conclusion. The other two women nodded as they passed.
“Merry Christmas,” They cheered merrily. Tim cringed a little internally but nodded, returning with a pleasant “Happy holidays,”
She cringed further at the faces they made. Never didn’t hurt— Mia wrapped herself around Tim’s arm, so she tried to focus on that.
“You had a move to show me?” Mia asked kindly, offering a distraction from the moment, as minimal as it was. Tim let her lead.
After a few fancy moves (Timberlyn Jackeline Drake COULD skate after all!) Tim was well and truly ready to throw in the towel. Her shirts were hugging her weirdly, the chatter of the rink was getting to her, and her shoes were too big and heavy. It bugged her that she couldn’t tell if it was the couple’s look that had set Tim off, or if her loathing of loud busy places like this was bound to wear him out. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was ready to be out of these clothes, out of this place, and start doing anything else in her own privacy (read as: Tim and Mia. Mia and Tim time also counted as alone time.)
Mia got the message, the angel that she was, and they were both quickly unlacing their skates, and ready to grab their belongings from the lockers. Mia was texting Richie, Tim assumed, or at least a few of the others so that they would be able to leave.
Why was Tim the owner of a car and a driver’s license when she was still forced to car pool with her family for events like this? She wanted to leave right now, and not worry about dad or Jane or Richie or Sander!
Mia gently took her hands away from scratching at the seam of her sleeves, holding Tim’s finger tips between her palms, bringing some warmth back to the extremity.
“I’ve been thinking about maybe bleaching my hair recently— if you had to dye your hair, what color would you choose?”
Tim took a breath, thinking over the many responses. She’s said red purple in the past, or pink under layer. But what would she choose now?
“Maybe dark green fade at the bottom of my hair? Or really subtle dark red highlights. Wait— like your whole head?”
Mia smiled in a way that reminded Tim of the painful-overwhelming extent that she loved her partner.
“I was thinking highlights, maybe kinda like a circle around the crown of my head? I haven’t really decided yet,”
Tim watched, trying to imagine that, “you’ll look good with whatever— you should let me do it,” She smiled. Nothing had ever gone wrong in situations like this. They could be trusted alone in a kitchen to bake a cake.
Somewhere along the way, they had realized that instead of targeting each other, that they could team up and make everything awful for their family around them.
“Hey, you guys ready to go?” Richie practically appeared out of nowhere in the middle of their ogling session.
Tim nodded enthusiastically, “Beyond ready. Batwoman’s about to show up with how criminally aggravating this place is,” Tim shuddered, standing up.
Her feet still felt weird in her shoes, ice skates having put a weird sensation between her heal and arch of her foot? Or something, maybe it was just that her normal happy shoes didn’t have as much of a heel as the skates did.
Richie grimaced, “Sorry, I got here as fast as I could, I was in the middle of a conversation,” Her eyes flitted down, as if to assess her little sisters’ health, and then took a double take on their shirts.
“Really guys— I told you not to wear those, they’re inappropriate,” Richie scolded, but not in an irritating voice, God bless.
“What— they’re funny,” Tim pouted, pushing Richie to walk towards the exit. They can walk and talk. Tim did not want to be here any longer or she might explode.
“Timly. They say ‘caution! every emotional: will cry’ and ‘please don’t cry: will turn me on’. None of that is appropriate. Someone’s probably taken pictures,” Richie looked helpless between Damia and Tim, looking like she desperately needed at least one of them to understand.
Mia just shook her head, “They are funny, Richarda, quit your pearl clutching,”
“My— my— uh! my pearl—!” Richie floundered, exasperated.
Tim sniggered at her girlfriend, bumping their sides together and carding her fingers through the other’s hair, and kissed her temple as they walked on. One day she was going to find a way to either liquidize her lover and drink her, or shrink herself so she could fit in Mia’s pockets no matter what.
“Careful Richie, don’t start a chain reaction. I’m feeling really sensitive emotionally and mentally right now!” Tim called back over their shoulders with a smile. Richie would catch up to them in a moment, once she recovered from the heartless comment from her little sister. Pearl clutching? Richie? Was she really so old and out of touch already?!?