TITLE: Never Too Clean AUTHOR: Ellen Milholland EMAIL/URL: radiant@bluelikethat.com, http://www.bluelikethat.com/radiance/imagine.html RATING: R CODES: CJ/T SPOILERS: None. ARCHIVE: Ask, please. SUMMARY: "She wakes up in his shower." FOR: Luna. * She wakes up in his shower. She stands in the thick steam, slowly lathering her hair and enjoying the little rivulets of near-scalding water running between her breasts. The ritual is the same each morning, the soap and the shampoo and the three kinds of conditioner. It is normal and comfortable. She's on the shampoo step when she suddenly becomes aware of the fact that the tiles in her shower are pale peach, and these tiles are bright white, and that her showerhead pulsates while this one just sort of dumps a stream of water on her. She realizes it is not her shower, and her immediate, sleep deprived reaction is to clamor out, fighting with the clinging shower curtain which is not nearly the shade of her own, and tripping rather ungracefully onto the cool black-and-white tile. She falls against the doorjamb, dripping water and soapsuds onto the floor. She looks up, and he is laughing, laughing in a way that she hasn't ever seen, this bubbling, joyous thing that originates somewhere in the balls of his feet. He sobers rather quickly, but his eyes keep smiling. She grips the door, grinning. Whatever she's put in her hair smells awful, just awful, and his hard water has made her skin feel vaguely sticky. She's stark naked, soap clinging to her shoulders and the curve of her hips, and he's gazing at her shining skin unabashedly. And so she raises her head, pushes her hair back from her face, suds and all, and tries to look seductive. Instead, she finds herself giggling in an exceptionally unusually way, and she's amazed by the fact that she actually sounds so delighted. That's because she is, of course, and because she knew it would be like this, the morning after. She knew it would be easy laughter, and casual nudity, and Toby wearing serious boxers and fingering her Victoria's Secret bra. She knew it would be the messy sheets, and the wan sunlight of 5 am, and the realizing she'd already used his toothbrush. "So, CJ," he dead-pans, "bagels or toast?" She's smiling. "I assume you have garlic cream cheese and blueberry jam?" "Though I cannot possibly imagine why you would need both of those, yes, I can assure you that my refrigerator is well stocked." He stands up, stretching his arms out behind him. "So, I'm gonna go start the breakfast thing. Maybe you could, you know, rinse my shampoo out of your hair. You're dripping." She smirks. "Well, I think I'll get back in the shower right after I figure out why you could possibly still be using shampoo. I could be dripping for a while. Bring me some coffee?" "I'm going to head that way and remind you that I'm _not_ your butler, CJ." He smiles. "If you don't ask me why, I'll tell you that there's girlier shampoo under the sink." "Let me guess, you pluck your eyebrows, too?" "A boy's got to have his secrets. I'm doing the bagel thing now. Go." And so she kneels down and looks underneath his sink, and it's almost more intimate than sex when she's poking around the bottles of stain remover, and shaving cream, and drain cleaner. She finds a bottle of Herbal Essence, and she spends a few moments trying to not think about why he would have Herbal Essence shampoo under his sink. She climbs carefully back into the shower, rinses her hair, and slowly rewashes it with the sweet smelling shampoo. The heat of the water leaves the bathroom reeking of wildflowers and Irish Spring, as she washes her calves and her shoulders and her stomach. When she finally emerges, clean and content, she wipes away condensation from the mirror and spends a moment considering her reflection, her cheeks pink and her mouth formed into the tiny echo of a smile. She leaves her hair in wet little ringlets and opens the door into Toby's bedroom. The bed is still a mess, but a little more light is creeping in through the miniblinds. She shivers and goose bumps rise on her arms and legs, so she rifles through one of Toby's drawers to find something to put on. She finally pulls out a pale blue dress shirt, folding neatly. She brings it to her face, and it smells vaguely of fabric softener and his cologne, and so she pulls it on without buttoning it. And so she is ready to go find him, clad in his shirt and smelling of his soap. She finds him muttering over a cutting board, a long serrated knife, and two plain bagels. On the table, she can see jars of jam and a butter dish, and a carton of skim milk, and a glass bottle of Tropicana. It is homey and warm, and the clock above the refrigerator reads 5:15. She spreads her fingers out across his bare back, and then she slides her arms around his neck from behind and presses her body up against his warmth. "I'm cold," she mutters. "Maybe you'd be warmer if you put on some clothes," he remarks dryly as he finishes cutting the bagels and drops the knife into the sink. "Yes, but then I'd be significantly less naked." "And wouldn't that be a shame?" he asks, turning around in her grasp until they are standing chest to chest. His hands come to rest on her hips, inside the shirt, and he kisses a spot just to the right of her mouth. "Hey, this is my shirt." "It looks much better on me, don't you think?" "God, yes," he says as she presses her hips to his. His hands are sliding down her back, tracing each of her vertebrae. "You smell like you just rolled around in clover, CJ." "I did. I just scampered right on out to the big, you know, field downstairs and rolled around naked in the clover." "Did you get someone to take pictures?" "Sadly, I did not." He smiles and touches his mouth to her shoulder. "Damn." She whimpers a little at his tongue on her collarbone. "Toby, I'm hungry." "I'm not surprised," he says as he pushes her back a little. He fusses over the bagels for a moment longer, then puts them on a plate and carries them towards the table and all the myriad jars. "Why aren't you surprised?" She opens his fridge, and is amazed to find herself peering at real food, not the pre-packaged, pre-processed trash she has a tendency to keep in her own. "Oh, and by the way, I'm moving in to your place, because you have, get this, fresh green things." She grabs a pint of strawberries happily, and says, "Oh, and fruit without fuzz." "Those green things, as you so eruditely put it, are bok choy. And sure, eat my strawberries. And I'm not surprised that you're hungry because you never eat." "I eat," she says, leaning back against the counter, her hands messy with strawberry juice. "CJ, tell me everything you ate yesterday. And put down the strawberries and come make your bagel. Sugar?" The phrases are all unrelated, but she has no trouble deciphering what he's asking. She reluctantly leaves the little green basket of berries on the butcher- block countertop. "And cream," she says as she reaches for a knife and the garlic cream cheese. "Yesterday, I ate... an apple, and a Yoplait, and, um, a garden burger." "That isn't food." "Sure, it is." "I'm not sure what frightening, radical, feminist, vegetarian planet you live on, CJ, but yogurt and soy aren't food." "Will it bring you great joy to watch me eat this, then?" she asks, smiling and motioning towards her plate. "I can't even explain it to you. What are you doing?" "I'm putting jam on my bagel." "On top of the cream cheese?" "Yes," she nods, licking jam and strawberry from her sticky fingers. "Do you have a problem with that?" "Not at all," he says as he hands her a mug full of steaming creamy coffee, sweet on her tongue. And then she picks up her plate and heads towards Toby's living room. She stops halfway to the door, heads back into the kitchen, and finds a way to balance the strawberry container on top of her coffee. She spins around, grinning, and ambles into the other room, stretching out on the couch. He follows behind her, his forehead wrinkled. "CJ, there's no eating on the leather." "There is now." She nods decisively, taking a bite of her bagel. His eyes are creeping up her bare legs to her stomach to her breasts, to the one shoulder exposed as the shirt gets wrinkled beneath her. "Well, just this once, I suppose," he says, reaching out to touch the inside of her ankle. "You're so kind," she says. "Eat." In minutes, of course, he is feeding her little torn-off pieces of bagel and ripe strawberries, and then she's straddling his legs and lapping with her tongue at the curve of his earlobe. "CJ, you're keeping me from my coffee," he says, but his hands are sliding across her back and down to her ass, pulling her more firmly into his lap. "The caffeine's really awful for you, Toby. Really terrible. I'm just protecting you from yourself." Her mouth is against his cheek, and her breasts are pressed up against him, her nipples hard against his chest. "You do realize, CJ, that we need to be at work in less than an hour, right?" "I can be quick," she says, wiggling deliberately in his lap for emphasis. He practically gasps, and he counters by running his fingers up the insides of her thighs, smiling at her sharp intake of breath. "I can't." "No?" "No, not at all. It would take much too long to taste all the places I would need to taste, and then we'd be late, and I'm not sure about you, but I wouldn't want to have to explain all this to Leo." She pouts. "Maybe they wouldn't, you know, notice." "Somehow, I think they'd notice. And, besides, your breath smells." "You're insulting me, now?" "Looks like, doesn't it?" he asks, and then he's kissing her, and his tongue tastes like orange juice and sweet butter, and he still smells a little like her perfume. And when they break apart, breathless, he's muttering in her ear, "You taste pretty good, though." "Okay, Toby. If I'm finding clothes, I need to get up, like, five minutes ago." Her voice is breathy, and her cheeks are hot. He pushes the soft fabric of the shirt off her shoulders, and it collects at her elbows, and he spreads a flurry of feather-light kisses across the expanse of skin he's uncovered. Her head falls back, and he kisses her throat. "Well, that was fun," he says, then, reaching for his coffee. "You're so kidding me." "CJ, I really need to go take a shower, don't you think? I think so." He nods curtly, and she crawls out of his lap, still smiling. He leaves his mug on the coffee table, and she follows him towards the bathroom, dropping the shirt onto his bed. "What are you doing?" he asks as he feels her warmth at his back as he leans to turn the water on. "I'm helping you shower." "I think I'm fully capable of managing it on my own. I've been practicing." "But I'm all sticky." "You already showered," he counters, but his eyes are smiling and she's helping him out of his boxers. "You can never be too clean, Toby," she says as she steps back into the warm water. And so he climbs in after her, touching her water-slick skin and laughing. "You've got a point there, CJ. Move over."