Tina Cohen-Chang. (queent) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-08-30 21:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: ezekiel jones, ₴ inactive: tina cohen-chang |
They hadn't left the Library that whole weekend, it turned out, and had been taking breaks occasionally to eat, shower, sleep, and watch a little TV now and then. And only because refractory periods were a bitch.
Zeke had left her sleeping in his bed after their latest romp, but his brain had been too wired to let him join her in dreamland. Not only because he had the Jaeger project on his mind, but because a small part of him was afraid he was getting too comfortable with having Tina in his life like this. When they had started up, they had agreed it was just about sex. And now...it was starting to feel too normal to go hang out with her without sex on the agenda.
But he pushed that out of his mind and went to his workshop to work on some last minute tweaks to the tech he was going to be installing into the Jaeger before the Alpha Test. Work always helped center him and that night around 2 AM was no different. He was deep in his work, only occasionally looking up to check on Nessie Jr. who seemed to be sleeping in a tank that took up a quarter of the room, so it wasn't a surprise he had no idea when someone else entered it.
He was hunched over his laptop, which had wires extending from it into a little electronic box, wearing nothing but his boxers, a pair of house slippers, and a pair of glasses that he occasionally used when his eyes were feeling strained looking at strings of data on screens. His attention was completely on the screen and keyboard he was typing away on, when he felt a hand touch his shoulder. Jerking in surprise, he pulled away for a second before he turned and saw it was just Tina. "Oh, hey. Couldn't sleep?"
Despite Ezekiel’s genius not always kicking in when she needed it to, Tina was able to steer the night to end up where she had originally wanted to go. And then into the next day, and almost into the next day. She had not planned for this to be a full weekend thing, but you weren’t going to catch her complaining about it.
Ever since their friends with benefits arrangement had started, she had been as careful as she could be with how she interacted with Ezekiel. Their paths still crossed, she couldn’t really help that. They had been friends first, even if he wouldn’t admit it (he’d admitted it once and she would hold that over him for as long as their friendship lasted), and she cared about him as one. They did not share the same approach to friends, and Tina wasn’t going to apologize for that one.
At some point Tina had fallen asleep in his bed. That wouldn’t be the first time, she wasn’t worried about having to wake up and sneak out. She also wasn’t worried when she woke up and Ezekile wasn’t there. Tina gleaned at the clock, the fog of sleep preventing her from figuring out how long she’d been out for. Ever since the wish plot that decided to not end, she needed much less sleep than she had before.
Tina pulled herself out of bed, pulled on the comfortable clothes she had been wearing for the movie night, and then went into the bathroom to splash water on her face to wake up before heading to find where Ezekiel went off to. It took her no time at all, because he was exactly where she figured he would be.
“I slept, I think.” she said in response, “I really have no idea what time I fell asleep.” She leaned against one of the workshop benches, being extra careful not to touch anything. “What about you? How long have you been in here?”
Ezekiel stared at the computer screen in front of him and then after a set of clocks that hung over the entryway to the room. "Uh, an hour or two? Kind of lost track, honestly, but you were definitely conked out when I left." Zeke blinked a couple of times to try and clear his vision of the fog that came with working with very little sleep. Putting his laptop down on the work table he was at and pulling off his glasses, he rubbed at his eyes before refocusing on Tina.
He noticed she was wearing the clothes she had arrived in well over a day ago and frowned. "You leaving?” Messy, this would get so messy if Zeke wasn't careful with compartmentalizing.
Was it only that long? She thought it had been longer, but sleep was funny like that. When he asked if she was leaving, she looked at him with an arched eyebrow, and then down at what she was wearing. It hadn’t crossed her mind to leave in the middle of the night. “I wasn’t planning on it at this hour.” she said with her own frown. “Mostly I was swapping the cozy of the bed for the cozy of my clothes.” She didn’t often get too cold anymore, but that didn’t change the fact that once she was home from work and out of her professional clothes, Tina liked to be cozy.
But maybe he really did need to work and she was being a distraction. “I can, though, if you need to work?” With waypoint travel she could be back at her own house and curled back up in bed in no time.
“No, good, I’m not trying to kick you out,” he hurriedly explained, realizing how that sounded after her reaction. “I just thought you were dressed up to go and…” he trailed off, not knowing how to explain what he thought. “You can borrow something more comfortable and clean if you want?” He offered instead. Ezekiel had almost said that she should just leave extra clothes there, but that felt like a line that they shouldn’t be crossing if they were still playing this as a ‘this is sex with a person that is a friend’ angle.
Dropping his glasses onto the table, then saving and then uploading his work file to the cloud so that he couldn’t lose it in case his hardware crashed, he powered down his laptop and shoved his feet back properly into the slippers he had been wearing. Standing, he stretched, muscles ripping and something in his back popping after sitting still for so long. “Want to get a snack and head back to bed?” Whether it was to sleep or continue round...whatever - he lost count, to be honest - he wasn’t sure.
She had no idea where his mind went when he trailed off, but she knew better than to chase that thought down. Whatever he was thinking, either he didn’t want to think or she didn’t want to know. So instead she crossed her arms over her chest and smirked. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to use you like that.” A hit it and run in the middle of the night kind of move, even if there were no strings attached to this, still seemed like a dick move to her. “I’ll keep that in mind for if you manage to talk me into another weekend marathon.” Borrowing something newer would probably feel better too, though she had only put on these clothes when it was time for the movie, so they weren’t terrible. Tina would have been just as comfortable in one of his t-shirts that would be too big on her.
Tina didn’t bother to hide the fact that she was staring when he stood and stretched, her eyes watching those muscles move, zeroing in on his abs with a grin. Abs were great, she had a thing for them, and arms, and there was literally zero point in pretending otherwise around him. “Hm?” she said, blinking and bringing her gaze back up to his face when he spoke again. She would deny that she had just spaced out completely for a second because of them. “Sorry, what?”
With a grin that was pretty smug, all things considered, Zeke asked, “You’re telling me that I had to really talk you into it?” The fact of it was, the only reason that this FWB situation had stayed fairly steady this whole summer was because they seemed to be on the same page and had equivalent sex drives. Yeah, he had hooked up with a few other people too, but he and Tina tended to be on the same vibe whenever either of them sent or received a ‘You up?’ text.
His smugness grew a bit, when he noticed her attention was somewhere other than their conversation. He intentionally breathed in to draw more attention to his abs, before releasing that breath and saying, “My eyes are up here.” The amusement was clear in his words, but he wasn’t laughing at her in the least. Casually, she raised and lowered in a shrug that said it may be possible. But the grin she shot him said differently. No, probably not. Tina might be new to the whole ‘friends with benefits’ concept, but so far it was working to make this place less...lonely. Definitely more adventurous. “You don’t know what’s going on in my head.” she countered. Except for when her face made it really damn obvious.
There was a slight flush to her cheeks when he called her out, but she waved it off. She was only slightly embarrassed. “Yes they are. But they don’t do that fun muscle rippling thing that your abs do.” she said, shrugging. Tina pushed off the bench she was leaning on, taking a few steps toward him. “You said something about a snack, I think?”
“And a bed,” Zeke confirmed, grinning. He gestured to himself because yes, he could be a jerk sometimes. “This is a snack you can definitely take to bed.” Because apparently he didn’t want this sex marathon to be over quite yet and sex was a lot easier to handle than trying to figure out the intricate feelings behind it. Or why Jake always seemed to get a smug, all knowing look on his face when he hears anything about Tina from Ezekiel.
Once she was close enough to touch, he did. Reaching over to drag a hand up her arm and under the strap of the top she was wearing, he slowly started to pull it off her shoulder. “And I’m feeling a little peckish too.”
And the bed. You couldn’t forget that. If that was the case, then Tina was more than happy to skip past the snacks that came out of the kitchen. When she was close enough, she reached out to trace her fingers over his waist, brushing along the edge of his boxers.
“In that case, let's head back to bed then. I wouldn’t want you to get hungry.” If she didn’t run the risk of Jake waking up or walking around here, she’d let him keep pulling at the straps of her shirt. Instead, she tugged once at the band of his boxers, before she turned and started to head out of the workshop and back to his room. “You coming?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder as she headed out the door.
You didn’t have to tell him twice that he needed to immediately follow her. Work was completely forgotten, as Ezekiel took off after Tina.