begmetwice | Apartment Above Dite's

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Apartment Above Dite's | Saturday Morning

It was starting to get cold enough that lingering in bed was tempting for reasons other than...well, lingering in bed, and on lazy weekend mornings, it was easy to just sort of find oneself shifting the concept of bed out of the bedroom itself, too.

It was also easy to take advantage of certain parties' certain needs in the morning and use that distraction for one's own purposes. Which is to unnecessarily-cryptically say that Irene had fully availed herself of the fact that Amaya was always a little fuzzy before coffee to idly turn on some footage she'd DVR'd some time ago and meant to really peruse when she had more time.

And look, here they were -- now with mugs of (respectively) coffee and tea, with a blanket -- because it was cold, of course, and see that above comment about bed vibes not staying in the bedroom.

"Oh, good, it's a ready-to-wear collection," Irene commented idly, because the first show -- Marie Adam-Leenaerdt-- was, you know. Not that.

[for the modded blacksmith!]

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There were, admittedly, a few aspects of this situation that had Amaya feeling a bit...skeptical. But, in an incredible bid for how much she was willing to give Irene the benefit of a doubt, she was going along with it.

This first show was not helping very much, but, in that spirit of charity, she was going to just chalk it up to not having had enough coffee in her system yet.

"There might not be enough coffee in the world," she muttered into her cup, not even realizing that she'd even said it out loud, before adding, more intentionally, "Ready-to-what? is more like it."

"It's probably beach wear," Irene lied through her teeth, though the snort she'd stifled at that first comment she'd totally heard might have shown her hand a little. "Cabana chic, you know. Not sure I've got the shoulders for it."

At some point she knew she was going to have to explain that the runway looks almost never translated to real life, at least not well, but for now she was content to amuse herself.

And to toe her feet over to lightly twine her legs against Amaya's, because when cuddling was available -- and secret, and under a blanket, and maybe just because it was cold? -- she would happily avail herself, thank you.

And while Amaya's leg did seem to shift a little to make that twining a little less of a stretch, she also reminded herself to have a look at Irene's furnace before she left here today.

(Or...tomorrow. It was negotiable!)

And any leaning in closer was clearly just to be able to see if a different angle didn't make the outfit make any more sense, clearly.

"There's at least going to be a big dramatic reveal when she reaches the end of the runway, though, right?" she asked, hopefully. Worriedly. "You know, of what the real outfit is underneath?"

Edited 2023-11-04 16:43 (UTC)

See, one of the best things about Amaya wasn't just how delightfully cuddle-able she was when permitted, as Irene was presently observing. It was also that Irene never needed to worry about things like her furnace going out, either! She'd never had an actually handy person who was such a close...associate!

"Oh no, darling, that's the whole thing," Irene assured her, shaking her head and trying to hide her smile. (And doing a much poorer job of it than she would have with anyone else.) "She might have another outfit underneath, but we won't see it as part of this show."

At least the rest of the models were wearing relatively normal-looking -- if baggy, large-shouldered, and often Barbie-pink -- clothes? Aside from, you know, the woman who looked like she'd put on a bed set.

Amaya was just concerned, really! If it was this cold already that it would necessitate cuddling, and it was only going to get colder, it would just be best to get on that ASAP!

That response earned Irene such a look, though, as if Irene herself had sent that model out onto that runway wearing that herself, just to get a rise out of her, and then she shook her head and found herself justifying it a little, especially when compared to the other looks, because at least the cabana dress was interesting? Gave them something to talk about? And...

"Well," she mused, "I guess it'll save you time once you do get to the beach. Points for efficiency?"

She was trying, okay? And she had to admit, this actually was a little encouraging, that maybe if she really did take more of a veer toward metallic fashions and this was the competition...

Honestly, that was sort of part of this -- as much as Irene was enjoying messing with Amaya a little, at the moment, wearing a damn metallic skeleton on your person was pretty damn couture, vibe-wise.

But Irene recognized and appreciated trying when she saw it, even if that look had accompanied said trying. "Look at how the fabric's pleated 'round her neck," she suggested, pointing at the screen (and, tragically, snugging a bit more into Amaya's side in the process, oh heavens.) "That, love, will trickle down through the house and translate into a skirt that I might actually wear, come spring. But you'll be able to see its grandmother the cabana if you squint."

"The pattern was kind of nice," Amaya admitted, "but doesn't it having to go through a bunch of steps to actually be something anyone would want to wear make 'ready-to-wear' a bit of a...misnomer, then? I mean, you could probably pull it off, as is, but that seems like a missed opportunity for an actually good outfit."

Amaya wasn't going to say that it would be a tragedy to hide a figure like Irene's underneath a structured tarp like that, but she was basically saying it would be a tragedy to hide a figure like Irene's underneath a structured tarp like that, just in Amayanese.

(And if Amaya could do anything to lessen the tragedy that was potentially more snuggling up, then it was the least she could do to at least shift a little so that if there was to be snuggling, it would at least be as-comfortable-as-possible snuggling).

"Well, I would put something much more fun on underneath that. Or strategically...not," Irene noted, slanting a knowing little glance Amaya's way. Which was, actually, a fantastic cover for how very flattered she was at that Amayanese compliment, she thought. (She was wrong, though, considering it was one of those rare instances where she was blushing, and could feel her face warming even now.)

"But, actually, I'm too short for all this," she added, tsking. "Runway models tend to have a good six inches on me; this would all bury me even worse than you'd think. And, more to the point -- " A deft set of fingers lightly tickled along Amaya's leg before that hand settled somewhere near her knee, because Irene was hoping to temper the confession she was about to make with a little touch, "I might have been joking about that ready-to-wear bit."

Maybe.

Could blushes transfer through tactile contact? Because there certainly seemed to be a little bit of that going on, as those roving fingers seemed to make Amaya's cheeks go a little warm, too, and almost think that, you know what, maybe the furnace was fine, it definitely seemed plenty warm in here at the moment...

Which was a little absurd, if you thought about it, that a moment of dancing fingers and a hand against her knee would even do anything after some of the other things they'd gotten themselves into, but, well, here they were.

"Good," she said, and, finding herself wanting for something for her own hands to be doing right now, slipped her arm around the small of Irene's back because, while it threatened to be slightly more cuddly, for the life of her, the only good place she could think of for that hand to be was on Irene's hip. "....I mean, about the ready-to-wear thing, not the you being too short thing, that seems like it would sort of be a blessing in disguise, none of them really seem too thrilled to be up there, and I can't say I blame most of them."

There were, actually, a few things that might catch her eye here and there, but it was hard to really focus on remembering them when her attention was vastly veered elsewhere at the moment.

See, that was the beautiful thing, wasn't it? With enough body heat generated specifically and intentionally, this flat could be really quite cozy even without the furnace even on!

"They're doing that on purpose," Irene admitted, her voice a bit closer to Amaya's ear with that arm around her -- what was Irene to do, after all, but drop the shoulder closest to Amaya so as to lean into that all the better? Really, it would be less comfortable if she hadn't. "Though you're right that most of them look miserable rather than just -- "

She drew out her free hand (as though the occupied one would be moving from Amaya's knee anytime soon, please) and drew a flat line in the air. "Neutral. Ideally, most of these people should be little more than walking hangers, which is also why they need to be giants."

That was a way to look at it -- Irene wasn't short, it was just that runway models were overly tall.

"Sometimes," she noted, as though imparting a secret (and again, with her breathing across Amaya's ear like she was, it was a little secretive), "it's not even the models you want to look for. Sometimes the audience is better."

Like the young woman in the front row Irene had just noticed, who had a dress that Amaya might...like? Admire? Draw inspiration from?

"Why even use models at all, then?" asked Amaya. "Why not just get a few dummies, rig them up on some sort of motorized base and have them roll on out?"

Because of course that would be her solution. But with Irene's suggestion, her eyes did shift from whatever poor giant was stalking dourly down the runway at the time being to the audience, and it took her a moment, but Irene could probably clock when the dress in mind was spotted by the slight squaring of her shoulders and the tilt of her head in interest.

She squinted a little and almost wished she had her glasses to see better the design, but it did look like metal links, and, well...now there really was an idea worth paying attention to.

"You've probably been in the audience at one of these things, too," she guessed, "haven't you?"

"Not usually the front row," Irene admitted humbly, now trying to figure out what it was that had caught Amaya's interest like that (because of course she clocked it, if not the source quite yet.) "But I've been to Paris as well as Milan and New York's fashion weeks, previously. Might be fun to do again."

Particularly with someone who was new to all this, too. Irene loved associating with a fellow clotheshorse most days of the week, of course, but there was something she truly, sincerely enjoyed down to her bones about getting to introduce Amaya to new things, too. (And the needling was fun, too. She kind of treasured looks like that one she'd been dealt earlier.)

"And you want to see how a human's body moves the fabric. You'd need dummies that walked, rather than rolled," she mused. "Which, really, sounds like something you could rig up easily, but not something the creative director of Dior is going to likely consider when tall, angry-looking women exist already."

Edited 2023-11-04 19:12 (UTC)

"Just put heavy eyebrows pointing down toward the nose," Amaya's own free hand demonstrated with a tilt of a finger down, and then belated realized she could probably explain it better with her own expression. "Same effect."

Oh, yeah, they'd love her at Fashion Week.

"That's a fair point, though," she allowed, "about how it moves over a human body..."

And now she was going to start noticing that sort of thing as the show went on.

"The drape, too," Irene commented idly, though she spared a soft little laugh for Amaya's description and miming, there. "You'll note that most of these models are built the same way."

Again, a way in which Irene would fail just terribly at runway modeling. Her figure was actually a disadvantage, as patently insane as that seemed. (Amaya even moreso, though that was also part of why Irene so enjoyed helping her find things that complemented those curves and muscles.)

"Did you see that woman in the audience with the metal dress?" It had taken her long enough to find, but now Irene saw what had piqued Amaya's interest a moment prior. (If that wasn't it, she would love to know what else it could have been!)

"The one all looped together like chainmail?" Amaya asked.

Because there were so many others!

But because 'metal' definitely narrowed it down, she nodded.

"Wish I could see it better, really. They should get dresses like that up there."

But then Irene may have lost Amaya completely to it.

"There might be some in a later show." And maybe Irene needed to find her mobile to see if she could track one down and zip to it. "And I bet she's famous, somehow, and we can look her up and who did the dress -- usually the audience is relatively well-known, themselves."

Which said something about Irene's former life, really, even if she hadn't usually been in the front row. (Usually.)

"Part of the event is showing up in something noteworthy, too," she added. "She's representing someone's work." She tilted her head, now ignoring the show in favor of the model-or-actress-or-god-forbid-influencer in the metal. "Does it look comfortable, though?"

Not what Irene would call a priority, mind, but still something to think about.

"...hard to really tell, from here...."

Glasses might be helpful, Amaya, but in her defense, it's not like she watched a lot of TV and definitely didn't usually watch it thinking she'd need an eye for detail.

"It looks....a bit cold, honestly, from here," she decided, which had less to do with the metal and more to do with the fact that it was basically just a bunch of holes, and maybe a little bit of just how terribly chilly it would be in here if not for body heat and blankets! "I'd have probably done thicker links. Maybe more squared than oval. And it would definitely not be functional."

Look at her, a callback!

"Might work better as a piece over a warmer dress," Irene offered, winding her leg against Amaya's, as though the comment about looking cold had cued her. (And, you know, maybe it had.) "But -- okay, mightn't it be functional if it was smaller links? Not that I think there's much use for proper chain mail at Fashion Week, but you never know."

She paused, hesitating as though she was thinking about saying something and thought better of it -- but then she seemed to change her mind again, gave Amaya's knee a light squeeze, and ventured, "And love, have you ever considered contacts?"

Just wondering, considering she clearly did not want to wear glasses full-time.

"That would definitely make for a more interesting show if it did need to be functional," Amaya pointed out wryly, "that's for sure!"

And maybe it was the distraction of the squeeze of her knee, but she looked back at Irene with a little bit of confusion.

"Contacts?"

"Little eyeglasses you can stick to your eyeballs," Irene supplied, pointing to her eye with her free hand (because again, that hand on Amaya's knee was going to have to be removed with a crowbar, possibly.) "Contact lenses, you know? They make very comfortable soft ones you just throw out at the end of each day. Just the same as glasses, much less cumbersome."

And more importantly, she'd be able to see while not having to wear glasses, and no one would ever know that Amaya had rendered herself nearsighted through a love of books, a fact Irene found utterly, insanely endearing.

Edited 2023-11-05 00:29 (UTC)

There was a long, weighted sort of pause, a pause of trying to figure out the right balance between plausible deniability and the blatant truth of her frequent optomological struggles. The urge to outright deny need for such a thing, in the face of such blatant accusations, was strong, but tempered, slightly, by the practicality of how exhausting it could be to keep up that sort of things around Irene and just the mere fact that it was Irene...

"To the eyeball?" she asked, sounding skeptical, but someone had probably brought up or mentioned contacts at some point in her life here on the island thus far, so it didn't sound too foreign, just something she never bothered to consider because, well, denial and all that. "As in directly?"

"Yes, but in my experience, you barely feel it," Irene shared, doing her best to hide a little smile at the fact that Amaya was actually relatively receptive to the idea. (Or, at least, not outright denying she needed visual aid at all.) "I've worn them just for fun."

When one was striking the way Irene was, sometimes the best camouflage was just a hat and some brown contacts.

"They're squishy plastic, I think? And they fit right over your iris and pupil, totally invisible." And there was always the danger of getting some sort of detritus stuck to them, but there were risks in everything! And that was a pretty small one, all things considered!

Amaya could make a case that she had to deal with a bit more unusual bits of flying detritus than most people, but then again, that's why she had goggles galore on hand at most times.

"Mm." It was a short, thoughtful, considering, but not entirely convinced sort of hum-grunt. "Maybe. Seems a bit...much, putting plastic on my eyes just to be able to see a tiny, marginal, incremental, slight,"--she might not be in full denial of her poor eyesight anymore, but that didn't mean she wouldn't still try to downplay it!--"bit better..."

"You can get samples," Irene suggested, nudging her shoulder a little into Amaya. "Just have a few sets on hand for when you feel like using them. I just think most things in life are worth experiencing without compromise if you can help it -- and that means being able to see the details without giving yourself a headache, love."

And maybe because they were all snuggled up already, and there was a kind of intimacy to this sort of easy comfort, and because she was feeling a little fond towards Amaya and her poor eyesight and how Irene didn't want her to hurt herself in the name of seeing -- a kiss was pressed to Amaya's cheek, soft and quick.

"Mm." Same sound, slightly different. Still short and thoughtful, but placated, with an almost grateful upward lilt to it.

"Maybe I like the headache," she pointed out, with the faint start of a smirk that suggested that maybe she liked being contrarian, too.

Oh, Amaya seemed to like being contrary quite a bit, Irene had noticed.

And the immediate response that sprang to Irene's mind -- that maybe she liked taking care of her -- was dismissed. Not, for once, because of the sentimental nature of the thought, but because even in abstract, Irene couldn't justify prioritizing her own new desire to nurture over Amaya's actual autonomy. She should be allowed all the headaches she wanted! Even if they were a bad idea and she'd make her eyes worse!

"I have found you to be remarkably open-minded, even when in conflict with preference," Irene noted instead, now depositing an even-lighter -- deliberately, infuriatingly so, yes -- kiss on Amaya's neck. "And willing to try things."

Things. But also, you know, Fashion Week and whatnot.

Edited 2023-11-05 17:35 (UTC)

Forget the Fashion Week. The truly monumental achievement here was the mild cuddling, to be honest.

"Mm." And a third hum, still different, but building on its predecessors, mostly huskier and ruminating on why she would bother being anything but contrary when that contrarianism resulted in such nice, light kisses on her neck...

"Well," she noted. Her chin lifted, just a little, in defiance of the blush rising up on her cheeks, and any effect it might have had in subtly opening up more of her neck was, clearly, just coincidence. She was fighting down the urge to clear her throat, so the next part came out even slightly huskier that it might have otherwise. "Fortune does favor the bold."

"Is there a limit to that? Fortune ever change her mind?" Irene wondered softly, and if there was any doubt as to what she meant, and which bounds of boldness she might be testing, the gentle bite she issued to the same spot she'd just kissed would likely supply the answer.

You were blushing now, Amaya, but imagine how much fun it would be to have to cover up the evidence if Irene got even bolder.

(But then, Irene was and had always been kind of masterful insofar as not leaving a mark unless she wanted to, in all arenas.)

No fourth hum, this time, just a small intake of breath, sharper than Amaya would have preferred. Any additional response would be slightly delayed, as she closed her eyes and just let it linger for a moment before she mustered up any words.

"No limit that I've found so far," she murmured, though when it came to boldness, Irene could easily make the better claim to that by miles. But Amaya could make her own contributions, too, as she pulled away, just enough to duck her head to ensure that the next kiss landed with lips against lips.

One of these days, maybe the tale of just how very bold Irene could be might make for an interesting way to pass the time. Maybe if the power went out, or something. Because really, Amaya, she'd hardly scratched the surface.

But that being said, Irene's various forays into boldness had actually given way, this past year or so, to experiments in restraint. It turned out, sometimes that was just as rewarding if not more so, because it allowed the opportunity for others to seize what they wanted, too. And 'others,' in this case, meant a singular woman whose hair Irene was about to get her hand stuck in, probably.

In any case, that kiss was met with a pleased hum from Irene this time, and her smile was probably evident before she went ahead and deepened it, lest Amaya get any ideas about pulling away.

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Apartment Above Dite's | Saturday Morning

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