A Snuggle at Night

[Stoney]

The signature tapa-tap-tap at the door just soft enough to go unnoticed if the water was running was all it took for Chester to roll his head Stephen's way and lift his eyebrows. He knew it was coming and for the life of him he didn't get it, why would the two of them be so tight all of a sudden.

Smirking he shook his head and closed the Louis L'Amor book he had been trying to read. Chester was not a good reader and he was told he had to work on that. In all truth he had done a decent job of catching up, but he was still reading at a level that was inadequate. Emma had suggested to him, with a bit of a look on her face, that he try reading some of the many novels by Louis L'Amor.

They weren't difficult to read, she had assured him. Since he was a bit of a country boy, a self admitted hillbilly, she thought he would be more inclined to keep reading if he was to find himself with some welcome and familiar subject matter. Though she had put it more simply and hadn't explained the look which as an English Professor she knew L'Amour, rather like Stephen Crane and the early Faulkner, could have profited from basic freshman English instruction.

Though he didn't want to fail himself as he was trying so hard, nor let her down. Finding himself reprimanded by the White Queen, unlike his room mate, was not his idea of an enjoyable evening. His eyes tired of the written word quickly and even though he wanted to know more about what was happening and going to happen in his story, he just couldn't seem to read well at all. The knock at the door was a welcome excuse for a break.

Grabbing an apple off the top of the mini-fridge as he walked past it he breathed hot breath on it and rubbed it on his shirt. It was an old habit he'd picked up from his Paw and he didn't care if it cleaned it or not, like his Momma always said 'Pound o'dirt a'fore ya die', so he figured it was all good. Opening the door with a smile for Jocelyn in her pj's he took a loud crunch of the apple and stepped back and in to welcome her. She was a good little kid who'd really grown up nice and it was actually her that had shown him how to crack eggs without making a total mess, a training technique Emma insisted he do in his Rock-Form to get some finesse and from it his love of baking had grown.

[Splice]

A smile came on Jocelyn's face when she saw Chester open the door. "Hey Chesty!" She leaned up and kissed his cheek before turning to look at Stephen on the bed. A beaming smile came across her face with a look of total adoration. "Hi Stephen!" She said walking over to him, her bare feet hitting the carpeted floor softly. After that crazy practice, Joce found herself reminiscing about the old days, and how it was like before she felt so scared of losing everyone she loved.

She had a feeling that if she lost Shade, she probably wouldn't be able to survive that. Their friendship was something unique that many wouldn't understand. It wasn't a romantic relationship despite the fact that physical and intimate aspects were involved, but it was more than just a platonic friendship. It suited Joce, and she knew that it suited Shade just fine, as he never went with anything that didn't. It certainly didn't matter to her what anyone else thought of it.

Without hesitation, she climbed into the bed with him, pressing herself to his side and cuddling up next to him. "Emma wasn't too hard on you was she?" Joce asked while nuzzling his neck in comfort, her leg moving up and draping itself across his waist. Her arm went around his chest as she hugged herself closer to him and let out a content sigh. This was the best place for her to be, especially right then after all the thoughts that pretty much threatened to make her head explode. Tonight she didn't badger him with questions or go on talking like she normally did, nor did she go into their 'game mode' of her playing submissive and him taking a role as the Dom. No right now she just breathed in his scent, her nose buried in his neck as she took in the warm comfort and feeling of safety that being near him brought her.

[Shade]

One hand behind his head the other he placed on the thigh she'd slung across him. His eyes never leaving the glow of the lava lamp that sat on the desk at the foot of his bed, save to glance now and again at the spider making it's way across his ceiling. She was a common visitor as of late and had been his evening's entertainment and a companion who he wondered about before drifting off to sleep. Since Jocelyn's return to the school however he hadn't seen her until tonight. He didn't think Chester noticed her inverted above them for so many weeks on end, Chester rarely took note of those sorts of details, but the darkling boy did and he knew her life was drawing soon to it's close. For how long did a spider dwell in the house of the living? Long enough it would seem.

"I'm alive, watch my ribs though." He said a slight twitch of something played on his lips as he adjusted her arm higher up on his chest. Was it pain, or pleasure? A smile or a wince? Or knowing her Shade, might his cat eyed wicked lipped thrall not know it a mix of both, he wondered. Stephen let his hand fall back to her thigh gently and stroking absent mindedly the fabric, soft and smooth, Satin? he wondered but no.. "I like these. They feel nice to the touch, cool, what are they made of? Something Atlantean?" he said casually absent minded but he knew better. Atlanteans didn't wear much, except for the runway models clad in the surface dwelling attire, he just didn't want to sound too foolish for not knowing the material.

Strange, silent she had slipped into bed, not a single giggle or idea for making the world a better cleaner place or story about what happened with.. Ohh right, her team practiced tonight. "I enjoyed my time in the Danger Room very much," he assured her. "Not very talkative hmm," he baited the loaded question "you didn't enjoy yours?" He shut one eye and looked at her laying there on him through the other. That close her eyes looked like an ocean a lesser creature might lose themselves in, but the shadowed one dove into her soul through them, his words like chocolate syrup over vanilla ice cream, a midnight DJ on a deep twisting spiral about to spin something out over the air and letting the gravel and timber in his voice set the mood. The simplest of questions can have many answers, it all depends on how they're asked... and who's doing the asking.

[Splice]

Jocelyn sighed into Shade all the more, nuzzling his neck, the soft familiar skin easing her into a state rarely seen by any save for a very limited few. "Pete did some team building activities. I got paired with that albino chick," she said quietly, her lips moving against her skin. "I didn't really like her from the start, she has a nasty bratty attitude that gave me a headache. I was gonna suck it up and get it over with but she flipped about it. Said I was embarrassing to her and she couldn't believe that she was stuck with me and that I was some kind of punishment. That wasn't what bothered me though." Her thigh shifted higher on his waist, a smile coming on her face as the long artistic nimble fingers, the hands of a master artist, stroked her thigh.

"She said that I'm too happy, and pretty much implied that it's fake. I don't get it though, what am I supposed to be if not happy?" Jocelyn said with a sigh, feeling the beating of his heart reverberate through his chest and under her arm. "I have too much to be sad about though, with everything that happened. It does me less good to walk around feeling miserable and depressed all the time than it does to walk around happy and just want to live life as much as I can." Another breath left her as she nuzzled his neck again, her nose gently stroking the tendons in the muscles while she hugged herself to him, minding his ribs.

"Then I got to thinking about everything. Losing Jean and Northstar, that attack on the school where we nearly lost everyone... that time Kelly and Mike almost died.... when you got attacked by those crazy anti-mutant douches and for awhile we didn't know if you'd wake up." Quiet as her voice was, it tightened up at the end there, as that was a memory that tore her apart thinking about it. "I guess that's why I like to focus on the good stuff and not the bad. I am really and honestly happy now, and I have you and Kelly and Tracy, what more could I need to be happy."

Jocelyn breathed into his neck again and just cuddled herself closer. "Now I thought about it more than I'd like to and I can't forget. I want to forget, I can't live in the past. I can't focus on all that bad stuff when I have too much good in my life." She sighed and tucked her head on his shoulder. "It just sucks cause now I can't get them out of my head. The bad times I mean." No one would ever hear the fun loving Atlantean the way she was now, because she wouldn't allow it. Shade was different though, the past weekend their friendship had deepened to something that Jocelyn craved and needed, and at this point she didn't think she could be without. "It's the Wakandian satin/silk fabric. Storm sent them to me for my birthday last year. She knows how much I love pink and how I hate long pants," she added with a slight smile every, relaxing more under his hands and loving the feeling of his fingers slipping from the short pink material to her skin. It relaxed her further and took away some of the tense issues that swam in her mind.

[Shade]

"None of this does you any good." Man I hate this.. this sadness that comes from being targets "It's our lot in life. When you are the nail that sticks up, like mutants are all over the world, well.. that's the nail that get's the hammer." He let his pinky finger slide up under the softness of the fabric, followed by another, and then yet another finger as he made small circles on the deliciously unmarred flesh of her thigh.

"But I don't even have to tell you that." He turned his head to let his lips press gently against her soft forehead as he spoke to her in a gentle tone, her vulnerability showing was allowing his nurturing side to show through. She was his thrall after all and part of the game was trust, but it was more than a game he was finding now as sincerity speckled his words like raindrops and humor flowed nearby like a stream. "You've lived it just like all of us. That girl's new to this.. the albino? Yea, I seen her around. Don't she have a thing for Brock or somethin like tha-heeey.. maybe she has a thing for you too?" He said his lips pulling back slightly from her head and a smile begining to form. "I hear that when people have that thing they call 'love'," an eyebrow lifted then to join the smirk "they act all weird and violent?" He shrugged a little.

He let a second roll by giving her time to look up at him. "Aw come on now, you don't need to be all down and depressed and blah," he threw a droopy face at her "you really gonna give that little dishrag the satisfaction of letting her sink you? Gonna rent her space in your head? Sometimes all we have is the will to go on, and for no good reason you let her sap your will? Ahh, it's alright- look I got a bit of the 'old tobey', right in my drawer right there" he winked at her. "Finest weed in all the Shire, sit up here and.. unnnff" he sat up with a little help from the cutest, bluest, nursey he'd ever known and turned to reach up above his bed and pull down the Frisbee.

"Oww" stretching is arm up over his head hurt but he liked it and the pain reminded him of who had given it to him... and the look on her face as she did so. "Oh, oh yea.. that's gooood." he said rubbing his ribs. "Yea, that drawer there, false bottom remember? No, not that bag, the one with the little four leaf clovers printed- yeaaah that's the one. And get that big cigar there, on the far side, yea the dutchie. You go on and crack that open while I shuck this here. Not too many seeds, but damn if they aren't the most sourest bitter god awful..but hell I love this Frisbee."

Frisbee's were wonderful for de-sticking and de-seeding and after a burrito size roll was made they were the perfect place to dry it, right over top of a lampshade with the lamp turned on. His little cuticle scissors were perfect for the task he had set her on and he couldn't wait for her to begin. Confidentially he liked to watch her mouth work at moistening the dutchman cigar almost too much as he almost forgot himself in his task. Getting back down to what he was doing he stole a quick glance at Chester who was not even looking in his book any more. He was doing the worst damn job of pretending to read a book since the first damn book was invented.

[Splice]

The smile on her face was back as her tongue moistened the end of the cigar, using the scissor to cut the end just like Shade showed her year ago. Taking out the box of the long ceder matches, Jocelyn walked over to the window by Shade's bed, opening it so she could air out the room with a light breeze flowing through it. Letting out a breath, she smiled and lit the long cedar match, her body shielding it from the wind as the sulfur burned out. Just like she'd seen Wolverine do a million and one times and just like Shade showed her, she wrapped her lips around the end and took a couple of short rapid puffs until the end was glowing brightly orange.

One of the facts that she loved about Shade was that his solution to all of life's problems was to light up and have a smoke. It was oddly comforting to Jocelyn, as she liked the familiarity of the routine and just how well it all fit together. Moving back next to him on the bed, ashtray nearby as always, her legs curled under while she leaned against Shade, minding his ribs carefully while taking a puff of the cigar. "Hey Stephen?" Her blue eyes trained on his face until he looked over at her, the smile of adoration and worship back on her face, a constant whenever she saw him. "Thanks."

She was usually the one who did most of the talking, but right now it was nice just to be with him in the silent comfort as the feelings slowly moved to the back of her mind with every cigar puff, her nose nuzzling his shoulder. Though the playful side of being the Submissive was catching up to her, if only a little as the lingering feeling of sadness still swirled in her cerulean blue eyes. Taking a long puff of the cigar, Jocelyn leaned up on her knees and dipper her head slightly, closing her mouth over Shades while exhaling the smooth smoke from the cigar into his mouth. She bit his lip, not hard but not so lightly either before pulling away and giving him a full blown grin. "I would check the room by the way. Kelly's determined to see what we do in sessions and I wouldn't put it past him to plant a camera in here," Joce said with a giggle, focused only on Shade while taking another puff of the cigar. She knew it must look odd to Stoney, but since when did she care what others thought?

[Shade]

Her lips exquisite, her tongue divine, finger dancing lightly as she went about her work. Dazzled and amused at her antics the dark one simmered, waiting, as content as a devil in sheep's clothing could be. Then as she had begun with the snip a snip snip he looked down and was absorbed in the beauty of the herb in his lap. Orange 'hairs' and crystalline granules of the most splendid hue of moist dew drop clarity, sticky but dry at the same time, it's pine scent filling his nose until..

.. a clear chime in an otherwise dull life, her voice sent him to return to the room in which he had lost himself in his work. In the details he could sometime find himself lost as the focus of turning whole buds into smokable, rollable fare was all encompassing to his senses and he let his thrall, his sub entertain him again for a moment. Her lips on his and his plan all to pot, no pun intended, as he accepted the smoke from the cigar he had intended to use to roll the evening's blunt with.

Little did she know, her underwater world held nothing like the bounty of the dry earth and it's sublime flora, yet he had spent the weekend refreshing her memory so there was no excuse. Her spirit bruised enough for a time, he chose to be a kind man this night and accept the smoke from her lips to his own. Her day would come though and soon, if she found her joy again, she would pay for her mistake with the most anguished of pleasures.. a sacrilege to ruin a midnight toker's plan.

"Who's to say he's not paying good money to watch right now?" The sideways glance held her there a moment then a quick change of subject to leave her wondering. A shell game of emotions but trust was the table it was played upon. "Now I wanted to roll a blunt with that, so the next time I ask you to crack one of those open you do it like I showed you. Wet the whole thing down and split it straight up the side so you can dump out the tobacco.. what did you think I was doing over here? Cleaning this to sprinkle on some pasta?"

He let the words sting for only a moment before softening them "You don't have to feel bad about it now, I'll punish you for that later.." he licked his lips at the thought of her tied to his bed and blindfolded "right now it's ladies choice. Want the bowl, the bong, or the home made glass swizzlepipe?" Pointing back to the drawer he grinned a flash of demon, and raised up one eyebrow as he looked down to scoop the weed into a heaping pile. "OR... there's a white owl left over down in there if you want to root around for it and do what I asked you to to begin with. He reached over and took the cigar from her lips kindly and let his hand caress her face for a moment as he looked into those eyes swimming with memories.

"And when you reach down there I'll give you a taste of what you are needing." Her full thick bottom was ripe for a smack and when she would stretch across to go for her choice he would spank her solid once then playfully several times with a smoothing rub between each alternating from left to right until she made up her mind. She could take her time deciding and he would finish with another harsh smack just to warm both her cheeks. "So you can leave the past in the past, we're done camping out so don't go camping out in the past okay? It's fine to visit once in a while, but you can't stay there. Life slips by too fast, if you blink sometimes you miss it."

[Splice]

A big grin spread on Jocelyn's face as she reached over him to grab the white owl, taking her precious time as the sting and sound that echoed in her ears of Shade's wonderful hand against her the thin material of her pink shorts. His hands were masterful in her mind, long and thin, the hands of a maestro of the largest orchestra. They played upon her skin with such precision and expertise that she almost wondered if he made a deal with the Devil to obtain such a skill. The slight gasps that his hands caused she emphasized and exaggerated for his pleasure.

They had a special sort of relationship, one that worked in both their favors in the end. Jocelyn knew that he loved how he could master her body with the right points of pain that satisfied his desire and made her body sore in pleasure. It was the perfect arrangement, the perfect relationship of a Dom/Sub. When Jocelyn sat up, her blue eyes darkened with a twisted ache that only Shade knew how to soothe. The memories weighed heavily on her, the result of how much pain she went through when they surfaced ripped her spirit apart. It was a feeling she loathed, a feeling that she wanted to be soothed as much as the ache that formed within her.

Putting the cigar in the frisbee, Jocelyn's eyes stayed trained on Shade's as she straddled his legs comfortably, moving to sit back just past his knee joints, knowing she wasn't granted permission to come closer. It was a stare that only increased her need and making her completely forget that Stoney was in the room. Her hands moved to rest on the top of his thighs as she leaned forward and kissed his neck, her teeth scraping along the skin just how she knew he liked. "Make me forget," Joce whispered into his neck, biting that tender skin just below his ear and smiling at the reaction. "Make me remember the hear and now, who my Dom is and who my body belongs to." Her hands squeezed the top of his thighs as her mouth moved to his lips to bite at the skin before soothing it with her tongue. "Make it all leave my thoughts, give me something else to think about."

[Stoney]

Chester wasn't raised up to sit and watch others doing their thing, like the two of them were about to do. Whatever thing it might be that the two of them did. He didn't want to disrespect his Ma or, God forbid find out exactly what that thing was they did. Best to try to ignore it like he did so many things. He thought it was strange for a couple of reasons but he didn't judge his friends. They could do what they wanted as far as he was concerned it just didn't sit well with him and he scratched his rough chin with the back of his wrist as he grabbed his book and took it with him pulling the door shut behind him. The sounds of their 'play' which had begun with him there sounded out in earnest in his absence as he walked down the hall.

Love shouldn't be about torture as far as he knew. It was never told to him like that anyway but he had seen it with his own eyes and felt it with his own heart and it was torture, without even so much as a whip or a ball-gag. His heart was tortured for the one who had gone. She was so far away now and all he could do was think about when he'd see her next and hope he had the balls to say something- anything. He might even tell her how he felt, but that would be a mess if he did it wrong. No, Gina knew about things like love and relationships, he couldn't just come out and confess what he'd been holding in his heart for so many years.

He was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was no dope. There was a time and a place for everything. Speaking of that he wondered what possessed Jocelyn and Stephen to do their thing right then and there. His mind flipped back to when the Hellions first got there to the Xavier School, and how little, and 'tomboy tough' the Atlantean girl was. Chopper reminded him of her back then sometimes, mostly when he would skin a knee or catch a fish hook in his finger, neither one of them ever cried and they bit back the pain with the same inner defiance. For a split second he almost turned to go to the Alpha room to sleep there, but that wouldn't be right, he knew that much for certain. He resigned himself to spend an hour or two down on the sofa in the rec-room with his book. At the very least it couldn't hurt to try to read some more, and if it sounded like they needed more time to finish he would just sleep in the hall.