What I See In You

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

It still felt hard to process exactly what had happened when Sawyer had visited (read; came in uninvited). Penelope was still wound up from it, and it didn't take her long to head in the direction of the co-ed floor. She knocked once on the dormitory door before entering, immediately making her way to the Australian's door.

She hadn't even noticed she walked right past Danielle, who had half a doughnut shoved her her mouth.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

Nothing.

Penny pursed her lips, knocking again.

Again, nothing.

She waited a few more moments before trying the handle. Locked. Penny let out a frustrated groan, turning on her heel and walking out of the dorm. There were only a handful of places that Penny felt she could find Lucy; it wasn't because she thought the Australian only hung out in a few places, but she honestly didn't know where else she hid in the school. Most students had a part of the building they enjoyed staying in. For Penny, it was the library, and she guessed Lucy would wind up in the art department.

Fortunately, she guessed right. When the Brit entered the art studio, there she found her paint covered Australian. Had she not been so angry and flustered from prior events, she might have taken a moment to appreciate seeing Lucy in her element. But she was angry.

“You told Sawyer? Of all people?” Short. Direct. An angered Penelope at her best.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

It was rare for Lucy to be anywhere but her room lately. There was only one other place where she chose to spend her time, and that was obvious. The art room was usually pretty vacant, so she knew she rarely had to worry about running into anyone else while she was there. Even if she did, most people opted to keep to themselves. They had reasons for being there that didn't involve others. But for this instance, she was alone. And she was grateful for that.

The ink manipulator could barely register the presence of another person in the room, no matter who they were. Her headphones drowned out the outside world, pouring hardened beats and heavy rhythms into her mentality. She procured herself one of the tables in the back of the room, and of course within moments she had splatters of red and orange paint everywhere. Across the table. The canvas settled on it. Her flannel shirt. Her shoulder as the material fell down her arm. Her hair. She even had a mark across her cheek.

However, when someone did walk in Lucy was sitting on a stool, her elbow on the counter as she stared down at what she was doing. Her paint coated hands were twisting a pencil between them, shifting slightly to drop the tip against the canvas in small, almost insignificant strokes.

When an entity finally reached her senses, Lucy looked up. Instantly she took an involuntary breath and smiled - by now, it was always what she did when she first saw her.

Before she registered the look on her face.

Dragging the headphones away, she settled them in an accidental stretch of dark grey paint. "What?" She asked, raising her eyebrows as she clearly missed whatever it was she'd said. 

"You look pissed." She pointed out. Her teeth sunk into the pencil in her hand, and she narrowed her gaze on the psychometrist. She did look angry. And that was just... Hot.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Being ignored was not something Penelope was particularly fond of, especially when she was annoyed. Her lips pursed at the sight of the earphones in Lucy's ears; didn't she tell the ink manipulator that those types of earphones were damaging? Penelope quickly decided to save that conversation for another day. There were more important matters at hand.

The Brit refused to even acknowledge what Lucy was working on; she refused to be distracted by the look of concentration her tattooed counterpart wore.

She placed her hands on her hips, waiting for Lucy to take notice of her. Her tongue clicked in impatience, but it wasn't long before the Australian to look up. Penelope wasn't lost to the familiar smile Lucy wore, and her own features threatened to soften at it. She took in a breath, keeping a steely expression.

Her eyes flicked over to the headphones as they were placed in paint. Good. Maybe they'd get ruined. Yet her gaze turned back to Lucy quickly, making no effort to hide her irritation. She raised an eyebrow at the question. Lucy's obliviousness only added fuel to the psychometrist's annoyance.

“Because I am.” she said shortly. “Sawyer.” This time, she didn't bother making an attempt to explain. Her hands left her hips, moving to cross her arms over her chest. “Why?”

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

The change in her stance earned a purposeful glance from the ink manipulator; Lucy's eyes travelled to watch her hand rest on her hip. For a moment, she stared before working to catch her eyes again. Her irritation was paramount. Her annoyance? Practically palpable.

She crossed her arms and again, Lucy looked. Long enough to feel the defensive nature in the stance choice. Or was it her form of aggression?

As soon as the familiar name caught her, Lucy couldn't help the way she started grinning. It happened whenever anyone mentioned her best friend. She instantly knew what'd happened before Penny bothered to try and explain it. After all, Sawyer had basically warned her that she was going to find the psychometrist eventually. She couldn't help but breathe an almost ecstatic laugh at the fact.

She slowly pulled the end of the pencil out of her mouth, but her amused expression remained; "What'd she say?"

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

A grin was not the response that Penelope was looking for, or even expecting. “Is something funny?” she snapped, failing to understand what about the situation could possibly make Lucy wear that damnable grin.

Nothing good came from that grin.

“Why did you tell her?” she tried again. Her eyes flicked downward to the pencil, her lips pursing as Lucy's teeth sunk into it's end. The Brit took in a quick breath, her eyes narrowing as they once again met with the ink manipulator's.

Instead of answer, Penny was met with a question. Her jaw clenched as she started to wonder if Lucy was expecting this to happen. The Australian didn't seem shocked from the news, after all, and only she would find it so amusing to see the psychometrist so worked up.

“She knew.” Penny paused a moment, debating if she should continue. After a moment of thought, she decided to; “She was under the impression that you branded me.” Surely that wasn't funny, was it?

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

At her question, Lucy did shake her head. But in it, she was lying. Of course something was funny. This was funny. Her expression however, was not.

She hadn't opted to answer the question about Sawyer and why she told her. Not yet. Lucy wanted to know what happened before she delved into an answer to a question like that. Judging from the look on Penny's face, Sawyer was simply Sawyer. And Lucy could already assume that Penny misread why Lucy had told her friend.

Of course she knew. It wasn't a secret that Lucy and Sawyer were close, not by any means. A lot of people knew that. But Penny was... penny. Perhaps it was wrong to assume she'd picked up on the relationship status of Sawyer and Lucy.

Despite how hard she tried, Lucy had to laugh at the choice of words. Branded. Given what she'd told - and even shown - Sawyer, that didn't surprise her. But it was funny.

"You reckon I just told some random chick cause what," Lucy started, raising her eyebrows as she dragged herself away from her seat. "I was keen to brag about it? You wanna give me a serve about that?" And as she made her way around the counter towards Penny, she breathed a smaller, simpler laugh. "Fine. Have at it. Lose your bloody mind about it if it'll make you feel better."

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Penny's eyebrows knit together in a frustrated confusion. How could Lucy deny she thought it was funny while having that grin. This day was just getting better and better.

...And clearly the idea of being branded was funny. Was Penny the only one who thought it wasn't?

Penny watched as Lucy pushed herself off of the stool. “I want to know why you told her.” she started slowly, very much aware that Lucy was walking towards her. She couldn't let Lucy get close. Proximity was always an issue when it came to the Australian. Penelope uncrossed her arms as she took a few steps away from Lucy, picking up a rag that was on another table.

“She claimed to be your girlfriend.” Penny added in. Although she never believed the voice mimic, Penny felt the need to say it. “I'm not sure what kind of 'random chick' does that.” She honestly didn't know about Sawyer and Lucy's friendship. Personal relationships were never something the Brit paid much attention to. “It won't make me feel better, Lucy.” she stated quickly, making her way over towards the earphones on the table. She lifted them before bringing the rag up to try and wipe the paint off.

She glanced up at Lucy again, lips pressed into a hard line. “Are you telling the entire school now, or just the obnoxious ones?”

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy raised her eyebrows at the statement, still not choosing to respond. She knew Penny wanted to know, but she wasn't going to tell her yet. She didn't want to. Especially not when she made the move to back away like that. The paint-clad Australian rolled her shoulders back, the flannel falling off her shoulder in the process. She made no move to pull it back on, letting it hang as it saw fit.

Pressing her lips into a line, Lucy tried her absolute best not to grin at the fact that Sawyer had claimed to be her girlfriend. That was standard practice.

At least Penny seemed to understand that Sawyer wasn't an insignificant person.

Keeping still, Lucy watched the way she tried to clean the paint off her belongings. She raised an eyebrow at the fact - did she forget she was in the presence of an ink manipulator? Where it ended up made no difference to her. So her showing up in a rage wouldn't make her feel better. Berating the Australian wouldn't help either.

So much for suggesting she take it out on her again.

Pressing forward, Lucy opted to fold her arms and lean against the same table Penny had situated herself at. Across the way from her. Proximity was different, but there was something between them. The remnants of the canvas she worked on might as well have been white noise - at this point, it just looked like a blended myriad of red and orange, a dark clad figure in the centre. Too rough to determine anything from.

"You reckon I'd do something like that to you?" Lucy asked her genuinely, glancing down at her hands to watch the way they moved.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Penny knew very well that Lucy was capable of taking care of the paint herself, but that didn't stop the Brit from cleaning it up. Cleaning kept her calm, and part her of her doubted if Lucy would even bother to remove the paint, even if she had the ability to do so.

As Lucy leaned against the table, Penny made no effort to move away. There was something between them; a table, canvas, paint. It made it easier to resist the Australian. She never backed away out of anger, only because she wanted to remain angry.

And no matter how hard she tried, sometimes Lucy made it so hard for Penny to stay that way. She couldn't help but to let her eyes travel along Lucy's exposed shoulders. No. She pressed her lips into a hard line, forcing herself to look back down at the earphones in her hands.

“No.” she said honestly, letting out a frustrated sigh. The genuine tone of Lucy's question made her impossible to question her. She wrapped the wire of the earphones around her hand before placing them on a part of the table that was no clad in paint.

Glancing down at her own hands, Penny caught sight of some paint that got onto her hand. She took the rag again with the intention of wiping her hands clean. “It doesn't make sense.” Penelope stated after a bit of silence. If there had been a logical explanation, the psychometrist might not have been fuming about it as much.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy felt her mouth curl into a simple smile at her admission. It was that level of trust - vague in its definition, but present all the same. Whether it grew or not was something she couldn't understand. But it existed. And that was what counted.

Exhaling a sigh, Lucy leaned forward slightly.

"You got a best mate?" Lucy asked her, "One who…Fuck, I dunno, hangs out and plays video games, even though she sorta sucks at them? The kind who," She paused quickly, unable to hide the smile on her face as her eyes continued to watch Penny's hands, "-Trashes the rooms of the people who fuck you over without ever saying anything about it?" As she stared at the Brit, she realised the question was probably more rhetorical. As least, that was her assumption. She rarely saw Penny talking to other people, but part of her just assumed it might have been by choice. "That's who she is to me."

She instinctively ran her fingers across her jaw as she looked away, idle streams of off-coloured paint marking her skin. But she didn’t seem to notice. "Maybe there's that one person you vent to. One person you can talk about the hot girl who likes to brand you, or whatever." Lucy offered a small shrug of her shoulders, glancing towards her again. "It was different when..." She paused, shaking her head at the statement she tried to offer. It wasn't right.

Lucy pulled back and wrung her hands through her shirt, dragging all colour from them and printing it to the fabric she wore. Her clean hands breached the distance, withdrawing the rag from her hold and running her thumb over the paint she wore. The paint she'd simply dragged across her skin further as she'd tried to remove it. "I know I should've told you." She added, her eyebrows lowering slightly. "I forgot to."

She unfurled her hands to show the Brit her sudden lack of paint. It would have likely irritated her further if it hadn't been removed, so Lucy allowed all remnants to catch on her own thumb.

"You look good with a little colour." She admitted softly, the corner of her mouth threatening a smile again as she finally glanced up to catch her expression. The look in her eyes.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Once again, Penny's eyebrows twitched together in a mild confusion as Lucy asked her another question. Yet, as the Australian continued, Penny felt her features soften. “She's...your best friend.”

Penny let out a slow breath, the corners of her lips pulling upward as she let out a light laugh. Nothing was funny, but she couldn't help herself. This changed everything. Even if she had wanted to remain angry after hearing the explanation, it would have been impossible to do so. She didn't give an answer to the question; Lucy had gotten her point across, and there was no need to provide a verbal response to a rhetorical question.

As the Australian continued, Penny let out another light laugh. Her mind immediately went to Michael. She most certainly wouldn't – and didn't – say it quite the same way Lucy had put it, but she had told him. Because he was important. Like Sawyer was important to Lucy. Her smile threatened to grow at the thought, and she shifted her focus to Lucy's shirt as she transferred the paint onto it from her hands. Penny shook her head in disbelief. She had the ability to put that paint anywhere, and still chose to put it on her shirt. She looked down at her own hand, frowning as the paint smudged across her skin.

An eyebrow raised as Lucy cut herself off. She couldn't help but to wonder how the sentence was supposed to end, but she resisted the urge to question it. However, she wouldn't forget it, either.

Penny sucked in a breath as she felt Lucy take her hand; she let go of the rag when it was pulled at. She felt the paint lift from her skin, and she looked down to see it completely gone. “You forgot.” Penny had to stop herself from commenting further, as she realized she had yet to inform her counterpart that she told Michael. Her fingers wrapped around Lucy's before she had a chance to completely withdraw her hand from the Brit, while her free hand reached up, gently tracing a thumb over the paint that ran long Lucy's jaw.

“You have enough color for the both of us.” She replied, looking up to catch Lucy's gaze. She couldn't verbally say it, but eyes had lightened over the news; Lucy cared enough to tell her best friend, even if that best friend was Sawyer, it didn't matter. She cared, and that meant the world to Penny.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

"Not my girlfriend." Lucy added definitely. As if it still mightn't be clear to her.

She simply nodded along to the fact that she forgot to mention anything. Despite how detrimental it was, it was still true. "You're distracting." Lucy decided to point out anyway, even if she already knew that about herself. She couldn't think about much else when she was around Penny.

Yet the severity of that fact was still lost on her.

Still, Lucy couldn't help but allow her smile to change to a grin when she felt familiar fingertips run across her jawline. She allowed her hand to be held, making no move to drag it away from her grasp. She didn't want to.

"I'd argue that," Lucy started, glancing down to the insignificant amount of paint on her thumb as it traversed across her skin to the hand of her counterpart again. "But you might freak out if you get any more on you."

The way the small sliver of red paint moved kept her gaze; her physical focus. She allowed it to snake between them in a line slowly. "Still mad?"

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

“I know she’s not.” Penny stated firmly, wishing to clarify that she never doubted the fact.

“I’m distracting?” she rose an eyebrow at the other. “Says the most distracting person in all of Pilot Ridge.” Possibly Vermont, but Penny couldn’t let Lucy get too smug about the fact that she was so captivating.

Her finger lingered on Lucy’s jaw for a few moments before moving to tuck a few stray strands of hair behind her counterpart’s ear. “You would argue that,” Penny stated, a hint of amusement in her tone. She opened her mouth again, but paused. The response was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. Instead, she pressed her lips together again, remaining silent.

The movement of the red paint between their hands felt strangely familiar. Personal. Intimate. Penny dropped her gaze to it, watching carefully as it traveled across their skin. She briefly felt the particular action of the ink was pulling them together. Her fingers tightened around Lucy’s, a warm smile spreading across her lips. “No.” How could she be?

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

As much as Lucy wanted to point out that a little bit, Sawyer kind of was, she opted not to. Now wasn't the time to get into the details of Lucy's pseudo-relationship with her best friend. Really, there'd never be a good time for that conversation.

"Is that your way of hitting on me?" Lucy couldn't help the words that fell from her grinning mouth as she glanced up. "Cause it's working."

Of course she'd argue that. And she'd argue it well. But it didn't seem like the place or time to do so. It was rare for Lucy to ever dismiss a potential argument like that. But it happened. And she wasn't about to question it. When she saw Penny seemed to want to speak and faltered, she thought about asking what she was going to say. But she'd gotten away without having to completely speak her mind, so it seemed unfair to question her. She didn't want to be questioned by proxy. An answer for an answer. Not today.

At least she wasn't mad. Not any more. "Good." She replied. Because it was.

The only time Lucy really looked up was to try to search her expression. The way she didn't seem to mind the ink that traversed her skin. Lucy held her hand a little tighter too, her gaze flicking down towards the action before back to her face again. Immediately, she felt her features soften. She lost her amused, expressive edge. Her grin. The smile Penny wore imprinted onto her in an instant.

"What happens now?" She asked, feeling herself lean further into the table instinctively.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

“I don’t ‘hit on’ people.” Penny replied instinctively, properly. That grin caught Penny’s attention, and she couldn’t stop herself from focusing on the Australian’s lips. She took in a slow breath before shifting her gaze downward to the table. The canvas.

No longer irritated, the Brit finally had taken the time to actually look at what Lucy had been doing before she walked in. Her gaze focused on the dark figure in the center of it, studying it with curiosity. Penny looked at it the same way she would a book – it was rare for her to focus on something else so carefully. She wondered what it was, or what it represented, and continued to study the brush strokes in search of an answer. It was only until she was posed with a question did the psychometrist bring her gaze back up.

“Finish.” She said simply, making a nod to the canvas. However, as Lucy leaned in, Penelope couldn’t help but to be drawn in to her. She always was.