Out of Range [Lucy]

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Penelope had yet to actually sit down and have a full meal with Lucy, and she was determined to. The last time they attempted to eat together, she had tried cooking and had it had not gone over well. The Australian didn't get to take a bite before sparking an argument with Penelope. So instead of cooking, the Brit decided to drag her counterpart out to eat in a restaurant.

Over the past few days, it had been increasingly harder to see Lucy in private. For some reason, her roommates opted to hang around the dorm more than usual, and they brought their friends along. It made Penny generally uncomfortable with the idea of being so intimate when there were a handful of teenagers right outside her door.

With that in mind, Penelope hadn't realized how hard it would be to go out in public with the ink manipulator. Penny assumed it would be easier to be near her without worrying about other students around them, but it was quite the opposite. At least in the school, she was able to pretend she disliked Lucy, which created a distraction from her ultimate desire to physically touch her; here, in the restaurant, however, there wasn't that cover.

So there the psychometrist sat. Legs crossed. Back straight. Lips pursed. She looked through the menu without speaking, occasionally glancing at the Australian.

After a while, she decided to break the increasingly awkward silence, “Have you been here before?”

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Amidst all the clear cut tension - because that's what totally it was - Lucy was wondering how the hell she got here. Why the hell did she agree to this? Somehow, actively sitting across the table from a person felt more personal than choosing not to leave that person's bedroom all day and night.

She recalled the last time they tried this. Before things were so... Physical. Really, she should have suggested coffee instead.

In fact as Lucy thought about that night, she seemed to catch onto the fact that that night was the first time. She couldn't forget the less than perfect words she'd said; I can't touch you. It's hard to stop.

She pressed her hand down on her own leg instinctively - she had to stop twitching.

"What?" Lucy asked, snapping out of the daze she'd trapped herself in. Looking across the way towards her, the ink manipulator pursed her lips at the distance. But she figured it was for the best. If she had to be here, distance was key. Maintaining all aspects of her behaviour was too. "I dunno. I don't think so."

She went to point out that the last date she went on recently took place down the street at a pretty decent restaurant. But that was just stupid.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Penny raised her eyebrows. Clearly the Australian was lost in her thoughts. It was, in a way, cute. “How do you not know if you’ve eaten here or not before?” she questioned, finally setting down her menu. After analyzing her options carefully, the Brit finally decided what she wanted.

Without the menu in her hands, Penny’s fingers twitched with the urge to reach out and grab Lucy’s hand – anything just so she could have some form of contact with the girl. She had to refrain – a simple touch, as it had proven, was a slippery slope when it came to the pair.

The Brit sucked in a breath, glancing around the booth they were sat in. She looked everywhere but at Lucy. God, this was a horrible idea.

When the waitress came, Penny actually jumped. She hadn’t been paying attention, and the woman’s voice threw her off guard. The jump was enough for her to accidently kick her counterpart under the table. “Sorry.” She murmured softly before shifting her attention to the waitress.

“May I have the mushroom tortellini please?”

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

"I've been here for over three years." Lucy reasoned with a shrug. Maybe that only made sense to her. She had an ideal memory for faces and minute details; where she spent her time over the course of years just wasn't in that category.

Lucy purposely kept hold of the menu in her hands, damn near hiding behind the thing when she realised Penny had put hers down anyway. When she did look over, she could have sworn she was getting a significant look from her. Where was her head at? The ink manipulator glanced away - she was remembering how it felt to be forced against a bookshelf.

Another burst of reality hit her literally in the ankle. Lucy cringed, glaring across the table towards her.

Oh, she'd be sorry.

"Yeah, me too." She shot out too quickly. What'd she just agree to? She hated mushrooms.

Slowly, the eldest Serrano let the menu go. Her fingers instantly started drumming against the surface, her dark eyes staring elsewhere.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy’s response, in a way, made sense, but Penelope couldn’t understand how somebody could not remember one way or the other. The Brit simply shook her head in disbelief.

Penny pursed her lips as she watched Lucy tactfully hide behind her menu. She placed her hands in her lap and started to play with her nails; anything to keep her hands busy. She glanced up and caught Lucy’s gaze. The Redcoat tried her best to hide the frustration in her expression, but something about the look on her face got to her.

Penny forced herself to look away.

Had she known that the Australian didn’t like mushrooms, Penny would have corrected the order for her. Instead, she handed over her menu. It felt like giving up a barrier between herself and the ink manipulator. There was nothing to hide behind now.

“I didn’t mean to.” She stated in response to the glare she was receiving. Penny sunk her teeth into her lower lip and shifted in her seat. This was going to be a long night.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy indulged in the disbelieving look she was offering long enough to chuckle to herself about it.

With the barrier between them gone, the Australian felt so unsure. How was it that this felt so much more personal than all the time they spent together? She felt raw underneath Penny’s watchful gaze; more so when she looked away. She felt her pain, really.

“Yeah, I figured.” Lucy replied, finally opting to look back at her again. She assumed that at the very least, she could offer eye contact. But even that proved to be difficult. She felt her gaze shift briefly towards her mouth when her teeth sunk into the supple, familiar flesh.

Before too long, Lucy was choosing to look beyond her.

“Stop doing that.” She said flatly. She sounded frustrated; that couldn’t really be helped.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Penelope let out a long breath as she watched Lucy’s fingers tapping against the tabletop. Her counterpart seemed distracted, and really, Penny couldn’t blame her. It was easier to focus on anything but this.

…Well, almost anything.

She had briefly let her own mind drift, but quickly realized it wasn’t the best solution to her problem. In fact, it made it seemingly worse. The Brit straightened her back as she hesitated before reaching forward to grab her glass of iced tea. She couldn’t believe things had come to this. She had no control over herself when around Lucy, and being put in a public setting with the Australian seemed to heighten that fact.

Penny snapped her head back to Lucy, eyebrows knitting in confusion as stared down the Australian. “Stop what?” Her own tone sounded strained, but there was a genuine confusion in there as well. She had barely even been aware that she bit her lip in the first place.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy watched the way her hand moved forward. Towards her, as she'd seen it. But it stopped so shy of her tapping fingertips. Her leg instinctively started bouncing again.

Tentatively, she raised a hand and went to point to her mouth. But before she managed to she stopped herself. This was Penny she was talking to - half the time she didn't seem to know that her subtleties were what drove the Australian crazy, in every sense of the phrase.

And the other half? She was slipping her hands underneath said Australian's shirt, expertly trailing fingernails across her skin.

"Forget it." She replied instead, raising her hand further to idly run it through her hair. She wanted to point out how much she hated this girl's roommates for making her so damn uncomfortable and unattainable in her own bed, but she settled for silently fixing her own dark locks instead.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Penny brought the straw to her lips, taking a small sip of the liquid as she waited for Lucy’s response. A response that gave little, if any, information. The Brit pursed her lips again before taking another sip of her drink. “No.” she said, eying the Australian skeptically.

It drove her mad how Lucy sometimes refused to explain things. Penny watched as her counterpart ran a hand through her hair, the sight reminding her of how much she loved curling her fingers between strands of it.

Penelope slid her hand upward along the glass before taking her straw between three fingers. She jabbed at ice cubes with it idly. Her hands needed to stay busy. "What did I do?"

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

The Australian forced a groan when Penny said the single word; No.

Lucy even went so far as to roll her eyes, trying to depict how badly she didn't want to explain herself. But she already knew that no matter what she did, this girl was going to press her for information.

Watching her hand carefully, she wondered if she was the only one suffering through this. It was borderline embarrassing; she was the one with all the control. All the strength. She could pretend nothing was happening in front of every single person she came into contact with during her time on campus, but this was impossible?

"You don't want to know." She said slowly, her attention trailing slowly from her hand, across her form and back to her face again. Look at her. Lucy dropped her jaw, taking in a breath before she spoke again, "Trust me."

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Penny dropped her straw back into the glass as she watched Lucy’s gaze trail over her. Involuntarily, the Brit bit her lower lip again. Something about the way Lucy was looking at her made her feel raw. Penny’s gaze dropped to Lucy’s lips as her jaw dropped, and the pyschometrist clenched her jaw.

This was torture.

“I’m sure you’re right, but Thomas Gray is a liar.” She responded sharply, taking another slip of her drink simply to busy herself. Penny didn’t even stop to think if Lucy would catch the reference. She paused a moment, before adding in. “Tell me.”

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy usually had the capacity for a little more tact than this. She was abrasive, yes, but she was also calculating on different level. It was irritating to lose her entire mentality when she insisted on biting into her lip again. Lucy was beginning to reason that she was doing it all on purpose.

"I don't know who that is." Lucy replied instantly. Great. Just what she wanted - to feel a little stupid on top of everything else.

She had to keep a better mind about this. The Australian was done thinking about prior events, but now she was looking towards the immediate future, which was admittedly a worse choice. Lucy leaned forward, pressing her forearms against the table. "What're you thinking about?" Lucy asked, drumming her fingertips against the surface again.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

The Brit raised an eyebrow, already having half forgot her response in the first place. There were more…important subjects on her mind. After a moment, she caught back up with the conversation. She couldn’t blame Lucy for not knowing the man – few did.

“He was an English poet from the seventeen-hundreds.” She explained, giving a lengthier answer than needed simply in attempt to keep her mind off going back to the dorms. It wasn’t working well. “In his poem ‘Ode on a Distant of Eton College’ he introduced the saying ‘ignorance is bliss’.”

She opened her mouth with the intention of trying to get Lucy to explain, but the words caught in her throat when Lucy leaned in towards her. The psychometrist gripped the glass, her mouth immediately closing and her lips pursed into a hard line at the question asked.

She remained silent a few moments before finally speaking; “You.”

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy stared at her with mild confusion when she went into a spiel about some guy she, truthfully, didn’t care about. Nothing would have usually stopped her from interjected about the fact that she really didn’t care. But for whatever reason, she let the Brit go on anyway, definitively tacking to the end; “Okay.”

She still didn’t get it. Or at least, she was pretty sure she didn’t.

Truthfully, Lucy didn’t expect an answer like that. Was she really thinking about the Australian? Nothing about her really suggested such a fact. At least, not until she knew she was plaguing this girl’s thoughts. She had to wonder if it was on the same level. If they were thinking in the same context.

Lucy finally reached out, her fingers curling around the Brit’s glass as she tried to pull it out of her immediate reach.

“Am I staying over tonight?” She asked, as nonchalantly as she could. But that was impossible. She had a reason for asking, and it wasn’t exactly a well kept secret.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Honestly, Penny didn’t quite care about Thomas Gray or his poem at this point, so Lucy’s not-so-enthusiastic response didn’t faze her in the least. In a situation where there wasn’t so much tension, the Brit would have likely gone into further detail to get her point across.

Penelope’s gaze traveled downward, focusing on Lucy’s lips. She felt the heat start to rise in her cheeks as she thought of just how badly she wanted to feel them against her own. She sucked in a frustrated breath.

Instinctively, Penny’s grip on her glass tightened as Lucy tried to take it from her. She couldn’t give it up. She needed to keep her hands busy. As she tried to keep hold of it, she felt Lucy’s fingers brush against her own. It was barely any form of contact, but the Brit immediately let go of her glass, shooting a glare at her Australian counterpart just as asked if she was staying the night.

“Yes.” She stated immediately. There wasn’t a question about it, that much was certain.