Survival Of The Fittest

((Will McKinley continued from I've Got You, Under My Skin))

"Rea, would you please give me a few minutes? This suit is really starting to pinch and I'm getting more and more afraid it's simply going to burst at the seams should I do anything even resembling vigorous. You know where everything is, so make yourself at home." With this, Will pulled off his shoes and carefully ascended the stairs to his room.

Carefully peeling off the various layers that had caused him so much annoyance for the last few hours, Will let out a sigh of relief. He pushed open the door to the massive wardrobe, which rather stereotypically, was only about a quarter full of clothing. Something simple and yet not fully casual... Polo shirt. Couldn't go wrong with a polo shirt and jeans.

Before he donned the clothing however, he picked up his deodorant, noting how it was getting empty. Probably should make a note to get it replaced, he thought to himself, before giving himself a quick spritz with it. He dabbed a little cologne where his neck met his chin and looked at his stubble in the mirror. It was looking a bit rugged, but a shave would take a little too much time for what was supposed to be a quick change. Besides, he was pretty sure Rea liked the slightly rugged look, so there was that.

Finally he shrugged on the sky blue polo and fished in his blazer pocket for a piece of gum. Breath could never be fresh enough. Especially in this kind of situation. He was about to walk out the door when he remembered something. Pulling open the bottom drawer on his dresser, he fished out the box that had laid unopened for... A long ass time. He flipped it over to check the best by date, relieved that they were still good for another month and a bit before taking two out and tucking them away in his pocket. Placing the box back into the drawer he took a deep breath. He had no clue of what to expect, but it was better safe than sorry.

((Rea Adams, continued from I've Got You, Under my Skin))

Heat and light at last. Finally, she was indoors, in a warm, well-lit room. After the near-pitch-black, freezing cold desert night outside, Will's house was downright heavenly. The perfect end to a perfect night. Well, maybe apart from the parking lot, but Will managed to make that part of the night bearable. But now wasn't the time to dwell on incidents of nyctophobia-related breakdowns, now was the time to relax.

Stepping out of her heels was the first thing she did once inside. Sure, the floor was cold on her now bare feet, but it was a small price to pay to be able to walk normally again. Well, not that she took much advantage of that fact, slumping into a couch, lying down with her head resting on her hands, looking up at the roof. She contemplated how strangely quiet it all was. After the dance, it was a stunning contrast to be out of the music and into a place where the loudest sound was her own heartbeat.

But then the thought of the reason the place was so quiet. No one was here but Will and herself. For one of the first times in her life, she felt absolute freedom. Sure, she'd been alone before, but not as an adult. She was at the point where a person starts to make their way in the world. There were choices ahead. And lots of them. And one of them was to spend the night with Will, she'd decided. She'd had a couple of brief flings before, but none who she'd felt as much for as she did Will.

Almost as soon as he had entered the house the very first time, Will had realised that he could never call it home. It was too alien, too different, with people who might as well be strangers to him. And he still didn't call it a home. Five years hadn't changed its difference any more than fifty would. That being said, he did know it well. How the fifth stair up made a sound like nails on a chalkboard if you stepped on it wrong, how the basement could only be accessed through a trapdoor underneath one of the couches...

And how quiet it was when it was nearly deserted. The only sound was his breath and his footsteps softly echoing as he walked down the stairs. Rea would be in the main room, he knew that, so he went the opposite direction and into the kitchen. He drained a glass of water, filled it up and drained it again, before getting a fresh glass for Rea. Only then did he turn towards the living room.

He pushed to door open and sat the glass down upon the so-called coffee table, which by his calculation should be an actual table if it was slightly taller. "Thought you might be a bit thirsty, so here." He sat down near the end of the sofa, where Rea's head was, and did nothing. Absolutely nothing. Silence was so nice sometimes.

Rea looked up at him, and smiled. Silence was truly bliss.

She waited a while before she swung around, sitting upright on the couch, and taking the glass from Will's hand.

She thanked him under her breath, not wanting to disrupt the beautiful silence. In the quiet, even a whisper could be heard. It wasn't until she began to drink from the glass Will had so kindly brought her that she realised how dehydrated she was from the night out. The glass was finished within seconds, and she placed the now empty glass on the coffee table. Well, it was a bit too big to be a coffee table. No, its size was more of that of a dining table with the legs cut off.

Rea leant back on the couch, legs up on the table, back to looking up at the ceiling again. She listened to the sounds of... well, nothing. Nothing but her own beating heart.

Then, she decided to ask him a question.

"So, have you ever, uh, spent the night, with anyone before." She didn't really know why she asked it, she just felt like knowing. "Be honest, I'll still love you either way." It didn't really matter that much to her how he'd spent his past. The present was more important anyway. Whatever his answer, it wouldn't cause her to have a negative opinion of him.

Not much could, at this point.

Actually, no.

Nothing could.

Crap. Crap crap crap. Sure, she said she wouldn't mind, but in reality this was debatable. He though of what to say, mind flashing back to Chastity. It had been a sort of ironic name he supposed, the story behind it being that her parents were incredibly-strict Mormons. Unfortunately for them she hated the church and was simply biding her time before she could leave. Because of this, she had rebelled whenever she had been out of their sight. Her name had become redundant by the time they broke up, but she had been the only one.

"If you mean in the biblical sense," he sighed, "One. Before we'd even met." He indicated with his hand to show that the 'we' in question were both sitting on the leather sofa. "We broke up a few weeks before we met in Sumac. I was still raw about it actually." He paused for a moment, letting his words sink in, before half-muttering "I haven't seen her since. Her parents... Were not the most understanding about extra-marital sex. Big on abstinence."

There, that was all he needed to say. Honestly, the less he could talk about her now, the better. Why did she want to know now, of all times? Surely a moment like this was the last thing you wanted to hear coming out of your boyfriends lips. Or maybe she'd needed to know for whatever bizarre reason. He was never going to understand women, as stereotypical as that sounded. He would simply be content with what he could garner.

Was somebody knocking at the door? He was about to get up, then he realised that it sounded far too rhythmic, and loud, to be some late-night Mormon or salesman. Goddamn, was his subconscious also this pent-up about Rea?

Of course it was, he supposed. I mean, he was. Plain and simple.

He seemed so worried about hurting her feelings, that it was hard to suppress a barely perceptible smirk that played at the corners of her lips. But it was nice to know he cared enough about her to be completely honest with her. And truthfully, it was kind of a relief to hear that Will had done this before.

"I'm glad that at least one of us has any idea what they're doing." She began to blush. "I'm... I haven't really... done this before." She'd had relationships with other people in the past, but she was still a virgin. And she could imagine no one else but Will to be with her when she changed that fact.

Maybe she should stop putting it off. Now was as good a time as ever, right?

She stood up from the couch, stretching her arms as she rose.

"I'm... going to get out of this dress, upstairs." She smiled, as she began to ascend to the next floor.

"Feel free to join me, if you want."

Why did she suddenly sound so risqué? It surprised even her.

To be perfectly frank, he wasn't surprise she was a Virgin. Rea could be demanding, facetious, bossy and self-righteous when it came to relationships, and she'd certainly not pulled punches in the early stages of their relationship. Now though, he'd cracked that hard exterior only to find she was still all of that, but also kind, caring, and quite often shy and more than a little inexperienced. It was nice though.

He didn't bother waiting. Sure, he was supposed to be well-cultured and to be a proper gentleman and all of that stuff, but he was also an eighteen year old who hadn't had anything but his hands for a long, long time. She was just flitting past the door, and he took the opportunity to have a look. Sure, she was kind of flat both up there and down there, but he'd always liked slightly less curvy girls. Apple bottoms were nice and all, but there was something to be said about little ones.

Oh, and the fact that her legs were fucking gorgeous. Sure, he thought, the appreciation of legs had started to die out, but all you had to do was look at models and pornstars to realise how much it changed things. If they had bad legs, no matter how Zeppelin-like the tits were, they'd look off. She, on the other hand, would never look off, because again, her legs were fucking gorgeous.

He got up from the sofa, watching as the door half-closed behind her, and rolled his shoulders to get the slight crick out of them, before following her. In all honestly, what she had said had been... Seriously? Rea was the absolute last person that you'd expect to say that kind of thing, but he liked. Maybe she'd live up to the dyed red hair if the clothes came off.

Well, he supposed, stretching your limbs as she climbs the stairs to your bedroom is going to get you nowhere in the 'getting laid' department, so picking up the pace and following her might be a smart idea. Actually, he thought, it was a very smart idea because that dress didn't quite extend far enough to cover up everything when ascending stairs, which made the previous view seem more than a little tame.

She casually flicked off the light as she entered the room. It shouldn't be too dark; enough light was filtering from downstairs to give it a faint glow.

Her dress fell to the floor, as she turned her head to the side, and looked at Will and smiled.

For all it mattered to her they could have been the only two people in the universe. Will had been the only person to see through her facade of general snobbiness and unlikability to see something good within her. He broke through to her in a way that no one else had done before, dealing with her many issues and flaws, and ignoring all that to view her as someone he wanted to be with.

Or maybe he just had a thing for redheads. Either way, it was still a win for her.

Will's shirt had hit the ground at roughly the same time as her dress. He covered the distance in a half-step, and drew her into him. He felt her entire body press up against him, and carefully lifted her up to that he had to look up at her. He murmured something to this affect, and then cut off any possible reply by kissing her straight on the mouth.

At the same time, he dropped his left hand, making sure to keep her suspended. His wandering hand lifted her up at the bottom, almost litterally, and he turned so that his back was facing the bed. To be honest, he would have to be careful. Missionary would be out, as his weight would be... More than uncomfortable, but he would see how she would go. It was her first time after all.

She'd barely had her dress off before Will pressed into her. She felt his warm body against his skin, his arms wrapping around her in a passionate embrace. She could hear a thudding in her chest as her heart raced. And then she was lifted off her feet by him.

"Hey, Will, what are you-" But then he planted his lips on hers, and she knew he didn't have to answer. She was totally and utterly in love with him, and regardless of how things turned out, this was going to be a night to remember.

He spun round, his back to the bed. And as he did so, Rea wrapped her arms around him. She leant in to kiss him as the pair of them fell onto the bed, Rea's body resting on Will's.

He hit the back of the bed, the small amount of light coming in from the street allowing him to see her face. He broke the kiss off to take a breath, and ran a finger along her scar. Her hair tumbled down, forming a curtain that blocked off their faces, and despite the slight tickling discomfort, he couldn't find a situation that he would prefer more.

"You know, technically we're both still clothed. We gonna help each other our with that?" A slight grin played across his lips, and he drew her back into the kiss. Hands would do the talking far better than mouths at this point in time

((Sorry this is so late, just been dealing with life stuff recently))

Rea couldn't think of anywhere she'd rather be. Here she was with Will, alone, in love with him, and about to finally do something about that fact. When she'd first met him she couldn't imagine doing this with him (or anyone else she knew, for that matter), spending the night like this with some bloke she'd met in a park who looked like he wanted to kill her.

But now... she was just giving away her virginity to him. Funny really, he'd turned out to be intelligent, thoughtful, caring, and a bunch of other things she'd never expected from someone like him. Didn't hurt that he was damn easy on the eyes, too. Not that she was shallow or anything, but it did help.

((Should we speed this up to the morning afterwards? Just getting paranoid about the time until the end of pregame))

((I agree, morning skip.))

First times were never great to be perfectly frank. Neither partner really knew the other's body, it was awkward, and sometimes painful. But, despite this, it was sex. Not amazing mind-blowing sex, but pretty decent for the first time. They had literally years to get to the mind-blowing stuff (assuming the relationship would last that long,) but yeah.

The light filtered in through his curtains, making him curse the fact that he'd procrastinated on getting blackout-curtains for the umpteenth time. Fumbling, he reached around for his watch, and nearly did a double-take. 10:13. He had somehow slept through his own internal alarm system, the light coming in, and quite possibly his relations coming home.

He was about to shift his other arm and step out of the bed, when he realised that it was numb from being trapped underneath Rea. He couldn't lift it up and out without waking her, so instead he shifted his position to a more comfortable one and lightly stroked her hair back behind her ear.

Sometimes it was nice to sleep in.

((I'm really sorry about the delay, I had some work dumped on me that I had to get done incredibly quickly))

She awoke to the feeling of a hand stroking behind her ear. Will's.

"Morning, Will."

Her eyes drifted open as she came to the realisation that she'd accidentally trapped his arm under her body. Not like his arm couldn't take her weight; he could probably lift her using one arm if he wanted to. But it would at least be numb by now.

"Oh, um... sorry about that."

She rolled off of his arm as she thought about the events of last night. Not that she had any other experience to compare it to, but the night was great. Spending such an intimate moment with her lover was something she'd been looking forward to for a while now.

Wait, 10:16? Wow. Had she really slept in that late? Any longer and… well, not that she had suspicious parents to worry about. With one of them at a conference or something in New York, and another probably sleeping until their shift at the hospital at One, both of them had bigger problems to worry about than who their daughter spent time with.

Still, now would probably be a good time to get out of bed. Late in the morning enough as it is.

"Hey. Morning Rea." He let out a small grin, and shifted his arm out from underneath her, giving it a few shakes to kick-start the pins and needles that signified the arm waking up. He peeked out through the curtain so, and saw that whilst the Dodge and Merc were still there, there was also the figure of the BMW which signified his relations being home.

His relations who barely knew Rea and hated the idea of him having casual sex.

He could've sworn, but decided against it. Swearing now would lead to more swearing, which would lead to anger, which would lead to his Scottish accent becoming thicker than the stereotypical porridge he was supposed to enjoy. Deep breaths.

"I need to go and handle my relations. Feel free to... He indicated the room, as if to say 'whatever you can think of,' and started rummaging through drawers for a pair of boxers to wear, and possibly a bomb technician's kit, if he had that tucked away somewhere.