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They stumble into her apartment messily, without much rhythm and without much ado; their lips pressed against one another, eyes closed, and everything feels a little less asphyxiating when they leave the hallway and enter into her room.
Zani’s hands never leave her even for a second, tentatively holding her by the waist while she hangs onto her like a koala. It’s at these times that Phoebe gives thanks to the Sentinel above for the tail attached to her body—it fishes out the keys from the front keyhole, pulls it out with a snap and as soon as Zani flings a heel to kick it closed, it just as quickly locks the door shut before reinserting them into her back pocket.
“Someone seems to be awfully impatient,” Phoebe mumbles as she’s carried over to the sofa, her feet hovering carelessly over the carpeted floor, “while I can still use my voice, must this Acolyte remind you that patience is a virtue one must exercise at all times?”
Zani clicks her tongue, “And must this heretic remind you who it was that pulled my tie while we were in the elevator?” she tuts back with just as much of a bite, “You’re quite fortunate that the elevator’s camera is still broken, my dearest Acolyte.”
They both know the banter is for show, just a little something of a habit that’s been permanently ingrained into their dynamic since the start. It’s not meant to be taken seriously though she figures that strangers might jump to the conclusion their little discussion could lead into some sort of Order-sanctioned fees and jail time.
Nevertheless.
Her tail still finds itself swinging around and ends up wrapped around her wrist and Phoebe can feel its pointed end rubbing patterns into her palm, trying to placate her even when there’s no hostility to distill out of her. It’s still endearing nonetheless, and she chuckles; both at its actions and at her words.
“Of course, I know that.” beams Phoebe, her thumb returning the gesture by smoothing over its soft edges, “I’m pretty sure you also told me that just as we were about to enter the elevator, didn’t you?”
Zani’s eyes open widely, a faux surprise washing over her expression, “Did I, now?” she questions, even though they both know the answer all the same, “Ah, well. Whatever. I’ll just give my thanks to the Sentinel for the broken camera. Maybe They wanted to let my girlfriend kiss me without having to wait until we got to my place, no?”
Phoebe stares at her, perplexed; though Zani’s not exactly sure if this too was faux or if it was real.
“Sometimes I wonder what goes in that head of yours when you decide what to give thanks for.” she says aloud, though it’s not an actual concern and it’s not her place to judge people on their piety—but she would be lying if she wouldn’t do the same, and Zani knows that even if she doesn’t have to say it.
“Then I’ll have you know,” she pauses just a bit to kiss her for a short while. Maybe for an emphasis, maybe because she can’t quite hold herself from how cute she looks, or maybe it was a combination of both, “I also give thanks that I get to have such a lovely Junior Acolyte as my girlfriend every single morning,” and then another kiss, and this time it really is just because she couldn’t hold herself back, “and every single night before I sleep.”
Phoebe’s caught off-guard. Speechless for a second or two; maybe one point five, just in the middle, but then again it’s not like she has to make a report on how she’s kissing a woman in her own apartment, and so she relents; “Oh, you.”
She presses their lips together once more and they’re wordless once again, the inability to speak when they’re so intent on sinking into one another overcoming any other urge to tease. Zani holds her by her neck, feeling the slightest presence of a reverberating heat climb up into her face.
If she were to break the kiss now, she’d see her flushed red and attempting any possible escape route just to not look into her eyes—perhaps it had been the little kisses in between, or one could argue it had been her little declaration she’d said both to tease her and to see how she’d react. It doesn’t matter which one it was; to her, Phoebe would look cute either way—and frankly, that’s all she cares about right now.
Whatever they’ll want to do, they’ll have to do it here on her sofa, Zani thinks as she starts to loosen her tie after tossing Phoebe’s hat away somewhere onto the floor. Her bedroom’s still unkempt, she hasn’t had the time to clean up the stacks of papers that litter around the mattress or the cans of Devil Tax that wither away by her nightstand—Phoebe would chastise her if she saw them, before grabbing her by the tail and drag her around to tidy up before they were to do anything else.
So this’ll make do, she decides. Her left hand has never left Phoebe’s waist since they’d gotten on the elevator, it holds onto her as she tilts them around until she finds a position comfortable enough for her to lie on her back because some part of her wants to drink her up. Zani wants to hold her down, wants to get drunk off everything that is Phoebe while she squirms around and whines her name out in desperate gasps as overstimulation creeps around the corner, still being something that can’t seem to leave her alone whenever they blur into each other and become less of a pair and more into one.
With limited vision, she kicks her heels off before she can freely drag them up without worrying on how she might dirty the fabric underneath—she can’t see all that clearly, not with her vision dissipating into specks of dust in favor to focus her senses on how Phoebe’s warmth radiates into her, she’s only able to hope to Imperator above for it to not bruise any of her furniture. Phoebe’s pushing her down, her hands getting bolder while she starts unbuttoning her blouse, her back finally meeting the plushness of her seat as her horns nearly tear into the worn-out fabric of the arm panel, and if she goes any further—
“Phoebe,” Zani’s the one who pulls away at the end of it all, propping herself to sit up with her elbow as her hands fling out to reach under the table, “wait, hang on.”
Her fingers grasp around the space and she knocks over some miscellanies here and there, she thinks she’d brush against a glass that she forgot she’d even placed there and knocked over a few Lollo boxes she’d yet to unwrap. Zani knows she should pay attention so she could find the thing she needed, but Phoebe had been intent on vengeance—nipping featherlight bites on her neck. Really, how could she resist pulling her eyes away from that?
At the end, after some few seconds of aimlessly grasping at straws, her fingers graze against a cotton like material and it’s then that she knows she’s found what she tried to seek in the first place. Zani pulls them out steadily, revealing a mass of cloud-looking coverings that resembled a sheep’s wool in the shape of her horns—it’s only then that Phoebe stops, attention taken by the item in her hands.
She points at them, not quite understanding what she’s seeing, “...That’s?”
“For my horns,” Zani explains, suddenly realizing that she’s never quite shown them in front of her before even though it isn’t the first time she stayed over because she’d never been the one to lie down whenever they intertwined and normally would sleep face down from exhaustion at night while still hugging her with one hand, “since they’re sharp and I can’t accidentally puncture the sofa with the edges when I’m trying to ea—” she pauses then, feeling like she’s absorbing the heightened pressure of a stare which, surely enough; “—why are you looking at me like that…?”
“It’s just that!” Phoebe says with a higher-pitched lilt, very much showing her interest in an item that Zani’s practically accepted as an essential in her life, “You didn’t strike me as someone who would own something like this…?”
“My,” an eyebrow finds itself raised and whenever comes another thing she can tease her for, she’ll always take the chance to act upon it; “is the lady Acolyte making assumptions based on other’s appearances?”
A shake of the head, “It’s not an insult!” clarifies Phoebe as she raises her hands up in defense, “Think about it like how you didn’t expect me to use my staff to hit echoes when we were in the vault!”
Zani squints, just to help her relive the memories of their second ever mission together, and, “Well…” she nods, remembering how back then she’d found herself amused at the thought of a peace-loving Acolyte bringing down an army of echoes simply by tapping—though tapping was an understatement—them on the head with her staff, “I guess that makes sense.”
Phoebe corrects her statement, “It does make sense.”
“Yes, yes,” her hands land on her cheek and they pinch her lightly, essentially forgetting how they’d been a minute ago and now they’re chatting around as if they hadn’t been all over each other a minute ago, “it does make sense.”
She’s about to stretch the elastics out, morphing them to cover her horns with one snap before she can fasten them shut when “Wait!” Phoebe stops her, grabbing her by the wrist just as she’s about to successfully seal one horn shut, “Can I put it on you?”
There’s no clear reason to reject her proposal, so; “Sure?” Zani gestures her to take them, allowing her to pry the accessory off her hands and the grin on Phoebe’s face is an evident sign of glee—maybe it’s just her nature of taking care of people, she’d seen her groom echoes every now and then, she’s the type to derive happiness from tending to others and it’s a part of her that Zani will never cease to find herself smiling from, “Careful now, can’t have you accidentally falling over if you lose your balance.”
“I won’t!” goes Phoebe as she steadies herself on her knees, positioning them to pin Zani’s legs in between them both to ensure she stays still and so she can get some semblance of a footing. She’s smaller than her, needs every advantage of height she can get to be able to watch clearly when she reaches over to encase the horns within the cover, “Don’t worry about me!”
Zani acquiesces, hands reshuffling to hold her by the waist just to assure herself that this way she’s helping her balance and she won’t double over accidentally. Phoebe’s careful, she isn’t someone who’ll lose her composure accidentally out of nowhere and end up bruising herself. She guesses it’s just pure instinct now, to try and protect her no matter what—it’s been long since she cared for someone like this, too long since her heart beat this fast and not having the source of it be the heat of a battle with a particularly frustrating deadline or the adrenaline rush of a battle in the middle of the night.
She doesn’t know if she’ll ever get used to this, this thought that someone wanted to cherish every moment with her so much so that even something as menial as shielding her horns with a cover became an opportunity for tenderness in itself, something she’s found to be so mundane, so integrated in her routine that even her movements had become efficiently repetitive after countless tries of figuring out how hard she had to wrap the elastics around to make sure it didn’t strain her horns—it had become something her hands can do out of instinct with no trouble whatsoever.
Yet here she is, waiting patiently as her lover tends to something she could do in a quarter of the time she’s using. It’ll be imperfect, somewhat messy too, maybe. Phoebe was skilled in many things—but she still needed practice to sharpen herself in anything, and this too, was included in that anything despite the simplicity of the task itself. Zani should care that it isn’t efficient, that they’re wasting precious time they could use to spend for something else—but Phoebe had wanted to do it, she wanted to take care of her even if it was something as small and as easy as this.
There’s plenty of time for Zani to teach her either way, plenty of time for her to adjust to this minute warmth that had slowly started to ease its way into her life and grow into something that’ll envelop her whole until it seeps into every part of her life and one day, she won’t be able to walk around anywhere in Rinascita without thinking of how she can find her likeness in every flower and in every music note that resounds through the air.
Phoebe’s not going anywhere, she promised her just as much; so she can’t be bothered to worry on whether or not Phoebe chooses to scorn her one day.
Zani knows she won’t.
She hears the elastics snap shut and it’s the low hum that Phoebe tunes out that takes her away from her daydream; “There we go…” Phoebe slowly lowers herself back down, just until they’re back looking at each other at eye level and she’s back to sitting on her lap, “Is it okay? Did I do well?”
Zani hums, “Mmh,” she reaches up to fix the covering, tugging it slightly just so it’ll hug around her horns a bit more tightly, “it’s a bit loose,” she comments because Phoebe did ask for feedback—and it’s not like she’d sugarcoat it just because she’s her girlfriend, Phoebe wouldn’t want it either, “but even if I didn’t fix it, it’ll still stay on, so I’d reckon it’s okay for a first try.”
Phoebe clasps her hands together in pride. “That’s good then!” she peers up at her horns to make a mental note on how the covering should look, just so that she can improve the next time, and the next after that, “I think I should be able to do at least okay since we’re gonna be together for a long time.”
Her heart skips a beat at her words—Phoebe would question her if she saw the blush that scattered on her face now, but she’s not looking at her, she’s still eyeing at the fixed covers to get a better sense on how she can fix it up into something that can be better than okay. She’ll tease her too, maybe—but Zani would be too preoccupied with her imagination that’s begun to picture them under the blue sky within a small cottage near the coastlines where they could fish together in the morning and stargaze under the moonlight—and maybe it’s good for her heart that she didn’t.
”Yeah.” she whispers, smiling at the thought of being with her for the rest of her life, “Yeah, you’re right.” because Phoebe is, they can make sure of it—they’ve gone through things that most couples can’t say they’ve done together, so this is something they can do just as well, too, “I can teach you later on, since we’ll be together for a long time.”
Phoebe looks back at her then, and she smiles—she doesn’t seem to understand the implications of her words, doesn’t seem to understand how it makes Zani feel when she’d so readily decided that she wanted to spend the rest of their lives together as if she was just deciding on what to eat for the day. They’ll have to talk about it someday, later when she has her plans more set out for life and when she can be ready enough to get down on a knee to present her with one of the rings Nyarla had once offered her when she saw them lingering around each other too much—but that can come later, she thinks. Zani likes how they are now and it’s not like she wants to rush them when this is something new to the both of them; just this much of a confirmation was enough, that Phoebe wanted her just as much she did.
Phoebe’s not done, though—and the air around her suddenly feels a bit more jarring than usual, “Plus!” she continues, “You’re so cute like this!”
Before she knew it, two warm hands found themselves on her face, one for each side and huh, this was karma for normally being the one to squeeze her out of nowhere, wasn’t it? “No wonder you like to pinch my cheeks so much.” Phoebe says, pinning her skin between each of her thumbs and pointer fingers before pulling on them with delight, “I’d pinch your cheeks a lot too, I get it now.”
Zani feels like she’s being tricked, for some reason, though she knows that Phoebe had said it truthfully and not with an intent to deceive. “Cute, huh?” she manages despite almost failing, face trying not to morph into one of displeasure, restrained voice straining even further as Phoebe stretches her face outwards the way she’d normally do to her.
“Mhm!” Phoebe agrees a bit too enthusiastically, like this had been another one of her goals in mind the whole time, “Like a cute Miss Sheep Senior! Even Cuddle Wuddles would pale in comparison!”
Zani stares at her blankly, unable to comprehend the comparison.
Where had they been, again?
The audacity of the situation snaps her thought process into overdrive, her mind recounting their steps and tracing back to what they were doing before the mood had turned into one of melancholy. When Zani looks at the floor, she still sees her tie and Phoebe’s hat relegated to the corner of her room, her pumps some feet away and—thank Imperator—without hitting any of her furniture.
Just as it’s done for many times before this, her tail snaps up and curls around her left wrist like a coil. It tugs her hand down before Phoebe can realize what’s happening; Zani has her fingers pressed behind her head and the other one wrapped on her right hand just like how her tail had done—Phoebe could only feel a slight breeze of air dusting against her cheek when she’s turned around, her body now sandwiched between the seats they’d been laying upon the whole time and Zani’s own figure hovering above her, sinking her into her shadow.
Phoebe’s still surprised by it all, turning red from the sudden reversal when she’d been in control of the situation before, even when she didn’t know it.
“M-Miss Zani—!”
Zani chuckles, endeared at how quickly she threw away her composure, “Lose the miss, hm?“ She teases, knowing well enough that formalities were something they’d long left behind when no one else was around, ”No one can hear us anymore, you don’t have to worry about anything except how I plan to make use of our time very, very well tonight.”
Her tail slithers up her skirt and it’s tugging on her stockings, brushing over her tacet mark because both of them know that sensitivity surrounded the area and it makes Phoebe keen out with elation—how adorable, “I’ll have you know,” she hums, satisfied at the outcome, “just because I’m wearing something fluffy and cute on my horns that makes me look like a sheep, it doesn’t mean that I’ll act like one, too.”
Phoebe tries to look away, her face burning with embarrassment as Zani leans down to ease them back into what they’d first set out to do. She doesn’t have to look at her now, Zani’ll give her some mercy to hang onto, a grace period before they settle back into their own special way of back-and-forth—Zani knows how to press her buttons well enough, she knows what to do if she has the sudden urge to hear her endlessly call her name like it’s the only word she’s ever learned in her entire life.
She’ll enjoy trying to find more and more ways to spark that flustered expression on her face for the rest of their lives; this, she knows too.
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