Private Awakening

[Colette]

The leather of the booth puffed up as they sat down, one woman in front of the other. Colette had eased up just a little but that didn't say much. She felt off, weird, as if something was being done to her against her will and she didn't know what to do. In truth there was even a small hint of fear mixed into it. She enjoyed self-control, she enjoyed being aware of her actions and what she was doing, and this was none of that.

"What's up?" She asked and began to shift in her seat. "I mean, I know what's up but do you know what's up?"

There was a little shift in her seat, a look out into the crowd beyond the booth. A vacant stare, a clear case of the thoughtsies before she turned back to look towards Lily again. Not so much at her, but towards her.

Eye contact felt difficult, the shame was all hers to own but she had no idea why just that it was.

Lily Decoria

 

[Lily Decoria]

Location: Rodia - Nightclub
Outfit: Party Dress
Tag: Colette

Reaching out to Colette, Lily offered a warm, sympathetic smile. Lily had never felt surprised or confused about herself when with others, she always just was herself with no apologies and expected people to enjoy that. "So, I think it might be good for you to know why you might be feeling the way that you are." Lily stated, knowing that her friend was a slight control freak but in the best of ways so having new feelings was likely as scary as it was confusing.

"I think, when I moved in close and invaded your personal space... I think your body reacted the way it did because you found me attractive." Lily paused to let that sink in, but then realised she might need to follow up, and how she was never going to be the best at this. "More than just how you find someone platonically attractive, I think it was something deeper, more intimate. A physical attraction."

Frowning as she thought about how poorly she was saying all this, "Colette, I think you found me sexually attractive and you might be bisexual. Which is totally normal, I'm bisexual, I think you are really hot too." Lily finally blurted out everything in as blunt of a manner as she could, hoping that would be the most helpful approach to her friend. Subtly was not Lily's strongest suit.

She just hoped it made sense to Colette.

 

[Colette]

Lily Decoria

Oh?

Colette's eyes set on Lily properly, the focus evident in the slight shift of her glance.

… Oh.

She couldn't help but look at Lily in a new light, one that she hadn't really seen her in before. Not as a friend but as a potential… More. A lover? It felt weird to even think about it. She didn't exactly mind others being into it, but that was how others were, y'know? If Colette was this… Bi-thing, then how come she hadn't noticed it before?

She had hugged Lily, and Everest, and many others before plenty of times but never felt quite like this. Hell, she had even been in a relationship with Shan but that had felt more…

More…

Colette frowned.

I find you hot too.

Her eyes darted up from the table and over towards Lily's blue eyes only to find herself at the receiving end of another shot of awkward. Colette opened her mouth to speak, either to defend herself or to agree but despite her lips forming words her voice just didn't carry.

Nothing but the most open-ended question of them all:

"Why?"

 

[Lily Decoria]

Location: Rodia - Nightclub
Outfit: Party Dress
Tag: Colette

Lily watched as Colette absorbed all the information that she had provided and gestured to the bar for them to get drinks since she figured that Colette might enjoy a drink as something to distract. When Colette finally spoke it was a singular word, just a question that was probably the more interesting question but the toughest to ask.

"Hmmmm... That's a tricky one." Lily admitted, not because it was impossible to ask or that Lily had lied about the attraction, it was more her trying to figure out what could be the reasons now after having felt the attraction for so long. It just seemed like everything but that wouldn't be helpful as an answer. "Well, let's start with the obvious, you are beautiful, strong and very physically attractive. At least to me." Lily stated, deciding to mention that as the first thing.

She then smiled, "but it is more than that, you are stubborn, singularly focused and loyal. I know stubborn might seem like a bad thing but I think that can be good, you don't give up easily and when you set your mind on something, nothing will throw you off course. I admire that in you and it is a very attractive trait for me." Lily knew that what appealed to her in a person was never going to be universal. "I can't concrete say everything I find attractive, mostly because so much of attraction and bonding I find through fighting. Sparring to express our emotions and open ourselves up to one another."

"However, there is an attraction and there has been for a while. It's why it hurt so much when you were so upset with me over my reluctance to help with Quinn..." Lily admitted, chewing on her bottom lip.

 

[Colette]

Lily Decoria

There Colette sat, listening to the compliments as they fell upon her with a troubled look on her face. She grabbed her drink when it arrived and softly cradled it for comfort. The bottle's contents were cold, her skin warm, and the condensation slick between each surface a welcome sensation from the uncertainty weighing on her shoulders in the moment.

It's why it hurt so much when you were so upset with me over my reluctance to help with Quinn…

"I… Get that." Colette said and rubbed her hand against her neck. "But I meant more… I don't know."

It didn't feel natural in a way. Yet at the same time it felt like the most natural thing of them all. Colette knew of these things. Not from home but rather through exposure since she left home. Love growing up had always been a secondary thing to it all and procreation the inevitable and primary aspect. It was to ensure the continued survival of a species and making sure that the incorrect genelines didn't intersect one time too many.

At least these were the — to her — very real aspects of anything related to 'love' even if these concepts had no holding in a galactic society. To 'tumble around' with a lover was a fortuitous blessing for a child to be had, but with two women or two men it didn't exactly work like that, at least not to her understanding of things. It was a genetic dead-end, a part of the tree from where nothing could be grown.

Needless to say, these 'things' weren't uncommon amongst her people but still seen as a bit more taboo than it had any reason to be — if the Galactic community was anything to go by at the very least, and it would seem that once more Colette was faced with another situation in which the things she had been taught and the things that she had seen out in the greater world were at odds again.

She took a sip from her drink and stared into it with a thoughtful frown.

"I…" Colette felt stupid, she wanted to ask a stupid question. "Never mind."

"I just don't understand why it hasn't happened before."

 

[Lily Decoria]

Location: Rodia - Nightclub
Outfit: Party Dress
Tag: Colette

Lily took a sip of her glass of red wine, not as cold as the beer but for Lily it was deeply refreshing and much more her palate in terms of alcoholic beverages. There was a lot going on in the mind of Colette, Lily let her friend think her thoughts through. It was only fair that she got the time to think of how to respond and what she thought about things. But it also gave Lily some time as well, to think about how to approach this. It hadn't been something she considered past the friendly teasing, flirting. She had simply assumed up until now that Colette was not interested in other women, since she had seen no signs of it before.

"Don't worry about asking questions, nothing you can say will be stupid to me Colette, I want to help you as much as I can. Only way I can do that is if you are completely honest with me." Lily reached out and placed her hand on top of Colette's, offering a reassuring squeeze. Hoping that she will know that Lily has her back.

Shrugging her shoulders, "I sadly can't explain how attraction works. Sometimes, a person can come across as terribly obnoxious, rude and unattractive but then you get to know them more and then suddenly you are in love with all the traits you used to find frustrating." Lily commented as she leaned back into the seat a little more. "How about this, why don't you tell me what you find attractive about me? Maybe that will help you understand why it happened now, tonight and not before."

It wasn't a guaranteed solution but Lily really couldn't offer anything else, and she would be lying if she didn't admit the idea of being given compliments and her best traits being highlighted did not appeal to her.

 

[Colette]

Lily Decoria

Then again, love and attraction were things she had been taught to try and not feel or act on given the circumstances of her existence. It didn't mean that these emotions weren't there, just that she wouldn't understand them once they showed up. Conceal them, deflate them, ignore them. With Shan it had been easy since she had already done it so many other times, seen so many examples from many different people and clans.

Had she gone this far only to realize there was some part of her she suppressed harder than others? Memories she had buried because of her confusion? Colette thought back to her days with her clan and the way she had acted as a child and teenager growing up in a dustbowl out in the rear-end of the galaxy. Maybe she had always been like this, or maybe it was something new dawning on her in this very moment.

In that regard, perhaps Lily was right. If she just tried to think of reasons she felt this way then maybe she could better understand it. Colette felt something brush against her hand and she pulled away on instinct. It took her a moment to realize what had happened and she softly, guarded as she was about these things, let her hand fall down into Lily's again.

"I don't like being touched," Colette began. "It's… Intimate. Not something that I was meant to feel or accept. Too dangerous. A good way to spread the plague and disease."

"But your hands are… Firm, and also soft. Worn, weary, but not without hope." She tried to explain without lifting her eyes from staring down upon the way her thumb brushed against said hand. "They are the hands of a skilled fighter, and a good friend. Someone I can trust, and mostly rely on."

There was no grin at that 'mostly' even though she wanted to make it a joke. Instead it was as matter-of-fact as the rest of it was as if she was just reading statements off of a list.

"The hand is, uh…" Colette looked up from the hand she held in her own, gazed upon the body it was so firmly and naturally attached to before she panickedly glanced back down at the hand again. "It's a good hand. Attached to a, uhhh…"

Her entire face started to turn red as she thought it over. All of this felt wrong to her as if it made her wrong for saying it. But Lily was a friend, and a close one that she trusted too, there was no need for that, right?

"You're beautiful, and I can't explain it." She blurted through the warmth under her skin. "Like an ocean, or an open plain. You speak to me, and I don't know how or why but you do."

"It's not… Love. Not that kind of love. It feels more… Selfish. Shallow. Not who you are but what you are. And it feels wrong. Like having these thoughts are wrong. I want to—"

And that, that was where the limit was reached. The otherwise blunt girl who spoke her mind had bent herself out of shape. She lifted her hand from Lily's to block her lips from uttering anything more than she already had, her face as red as a tomato, her skin ablaze in shame.

"I can't say." She mumbled into her fist.