Log:A Jar and a Reflection
From Literepetition
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If Astor has never felt like the most welcoming dorm before, it surely feels much less so now. An eerie stillness hangs in the halls and the stairways as Mary slips in the main entrance after the seized opportunity of an exiting freshman boy. She pulls off her hat, smooths the static out of her hair, and starts making her way to the fourth floor, and her sunny demeanor looks quite dampened by the atmosphere. Her features still and she keeps even her breathing silent and soft. Everyone else seems to be shut up in their rooms, if they're even in the building. But she isn't here completely idly, so she soldiers on resolutely to the door reading 424, currently an infrequently visited locale though not wholly foreign. She knocks.
"Who is it?" Not the usual "s'open". Though things have been dark lately with the latest events and the loss of Woody especially, Doyle has had a surprisingly sober mourning period. And a mourning period of utter solitude as well. Even still, his voice sounds oddly normal. Maybe he's over it now.
"Just Mary," says she, managing to sound essentially cheery. A re-shouldering of her bag, a leaning against the door frame, waiting for some kind of invitation. She casts her eyes around the other doors, all closed. Not welcoming. Her hand then slips into her coat pocket and closes its fingers around the small jar.
"S'open." And inside his room, Doyle is working on something. He sits cross-legged on his bed with his eyes focused intently on the screen of his laptop, surrounded by papers and books all left open. Something about molecular biology and salamanders.
Coming in, unbuttoning her coat: "D'you want to hold onto this?" Mary asks. "Seeing as how you're the one with the single." This being the jar— filled with murky, brackish looking water, probably once used for jam or preserves— which she draws out and comes over to the bed to offer him.
This garners a glance. Why yes, there is something Doyle could hold onto here in his single, and no it isn't a jar of water. But of course, Mary is talking about the jar of water. "Can't keep it in your scruffy boyfriend's place?" he asks, reaching out to take said jar and turning it over in his hands curiously. "Or are you afraid he'll drink it or something?"
"He's not scruffy anymore, in fact we shaved his head. So there." It's a slightly crooked version of her usual grin that she offers; something appears to trouble Mary about this even though she does sound genuinely amused. Thus saying, she takes off her coat and her bag and sets them near Doyle's desk chair, the plan apparently being that she was to stay here a little bit. "I think that's a pretty good quantity to start with. Just to test things out and see what it looks like under the microscope and stuff," she continues, and makes to sit down at the desk if he doesn't object.
There is no objection, just cool observance, and not of the water. "He join the Skinheads?" asks Doyle, perhaps rhetorically. "Unwashed French guy to hardcore racist. Bit of a leap." He can tell there's something about it Mary doesn't like. Maybe she liked the guy's hair. Maybe it was good for gripping when—
His eyes go back to the jar, another quick once-over before he sets it on the nightstand nearby. "Should be good enough, yeah. Figure out what we've got to work with."
Although she rolls her eyes at first, Mary just responds to his latter statement. "Yep. And by the way, if this is going to take longer than the rest of the semester, I don't mind spending more time. When you're a junior you might get more free lab access anyway, won't you?" she wonders. Then she shrugs, and seems to move on. Perfunctorily but not without real concern, she checks, "You're okay, right? With um— things here." The campus is small enough that one tends to know who is friends with whom, and in any case Doyle lives in the nexus of all the recent disasters.
A small shrug and Doyle closes the lid of his laptop, since it appears this visit is going to be an extended one. "Bit rough at first, but I'd figured it was already someone Woody knew and wasn't holding out much hope that he was still alive, him being gone so long."
"I think I only met him once, if he's the guy I'm thinking of. Just... dunno, let me know if there's anything I can do." Sending her hand back through her hair. Small sigh. It's clear that Mary is not immensely comfortable here in this dorm, but is sticking by whatever compelled her to come up here in the first place.
Doyle shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. I handle this shit better on my own." Experience, perhaps? Something. He continues to watch Mary curiously. "Pretty sure the place isn't gonna swallow you up or anything."
Her smile comes quick with a sharp expelled breath. "No, I know. It's just weird. I sure as hell hope I'm not here next year." Though Mary also stands up, walks past him to the window, and gazes out. "Nice view, though," she comments, husky and still definitely distracted.
And with Mary's back to him, Doyle can indeed agree that it is a nice view: "Uh-huh." He's not talking about the view from the window, though. Long hair, nice figure, the perfect shape, what that voice must sound like when in the throes of ecstasy . . . "Can't wait to get into the upperclassmen dorms."
"Mm." It's then that maybe she can feel his eyes on her, because Mary turns around after a silent minute and glances at him with brow arching, gradual. "I know you said you were trying to clean up, but if you weren't doing that, I'd say you look like you could really use a smoke."
"Good idea." Doyle reaches for the pack and lighter left on the nightstand, smirking a bit, casual. "You mind?" He's already in the process of pulling out a cigarette but does obligingly pause a brief moment for the response.
Mary smirks back mildly. "I didn't mean that kind, but if cleaning up doesn't include Nicorette, it's your room." Her tone is slightly admonishing, but not in the self-righteous register that some non-smokers tend to acquire. She may have the health concerns appropriate for a pre-med, but when she adds, "Just enjoy your lung cancer," she sounds more melancholy than anything else.
Thus the cigarette comes out of its package and Doyle places it between his lips before dropping the rest of the pack on the nightstand and rising to go to the window. "Usually smoke right at the window," he notes, reaching over to slide the pane open. "Helps keep the smell out." Sorta. Without much ado, he lights up and takes a seat near the glass.
Shifting aside to get out of the smoke's direct wafting, though it will be hard for her to avoid it too thoroughly, Mary nods wordlessly and folds her arms, turning her attention back to the outdoors. She's thinking about something, it's obvious, and then she says, not yet looking at Doyle himself, "I guess if you were sorta involved in stuff already, I can head out."
Lost in his own thoughts, Doyle doesn't respond immediately. His eyes are fixed on what's beyond the window, considering something that is not even within his sight— or even remotely reality. Hands tangling in hair, lips savage against his own, nails scraping the skin along his shoulders and back and arms, firm legs clinging to his hips . . .
A soft sound escapes Mary, a brightness enters her eyes. "I did say if there was anything I could do..." she begins, and it's bold and not about to pretend otherwise about where they are, how the door closed when she came in.
Blink? Doyle glances over, smirks, lets his cigarette rest on the ashtray kept in the windowsill specifically for such a purpose. "Well, I guess if you're offering—" His arm reaches out to take Mary by the waist and draw her closer, pulling her into a kiss that's soft at first, exploratory.
It doesn't last long that way. The eagerness that rises to her surface is palpable; she fumbles blindly with one hand to tug the pane back down, to draw herself back against it when she's done, the pale blue of her sweater pressing on the glass and matching the clear sky. Mary hums and drinks him in so rapidly that she's quickly gasping, so hungry it might defy any expectation.
It doesn't stay a kiss for long, either. Settling his body as firmly against Mary's as he can in this position, Doyle's head drops suddenly to deliver a sharp bite to the side of her throat. His hands are already pulling at the button on her jeans, downing the zipper, tugging up the hem of her shirt. Fast and heated, just the way he likes.
"Oh, fuck." Not the exclamation of someone accustomed to that— more perhaps of someone accustomed to being on the giving end. But still liking it this way. Fingers tighten fiercely in the hair just above his nape, and Mary follows her curse with a startled, almost panicked cry. Scared of how good it is. Retaliating, however; when she has the presence of mind, she breaks free of his teeth and returns the gesture with ferocious need, hard, hard. At some point, one hand had gone to his shirt in turn and started lifting.
This gets a soft cry in return from Doyle. Yes, he likes that. A lot. The sound turns into a rasping growl, another bite when he's able to reciprocate, damnably hard. It breaks only when he suddenly jerks away to shuck off his shirt and peel Mary out of hers, but then he's right back at her throat and then lower, teeth and lips scoring again and again on her skin with thirsty abandon.
The pain, the brutality of it, would not seem like her taste if Mary weren't paying him back in kind. His hair is more tamed than in earlier days, but she still yanks at it, snarls when she tries to suck in air, rakes nails directly down his spine before opening his jeans in several deft movements and groping through fabric in that dangerous balance of necessary gentleness and the outer limits of rough insistence. Whether or not she bruises easily as a rule, the marks appear readily enough now, and the moans coming from her are already ragged.
A gasp and rough grind from Doyle's hips, and then his hands are tugging demandingly at the waistband of both jeans and whatever might be beneath. It's only a smooth pull to unclothe Mary fully. His teeth find a nipple, another, as his hands then work on dropping the remainder of his own clothing. Hands grip her hips and tug them closer to his own as he presses forward, attempting to place himself in the cradle of her thighs.
No time to ask for protection. No mental capacity to fathom anything beyond this, right here and right now, right against the window. Mary's hand doesn't even need to work for her goal to be achieved, it seems, and so she just tells him, throaty, demanding, "Fucking do it—" while her legs open more than willingly and she's setting her arms over his shoulders, raising her voice even before they've even begun any rhythm.
No second invitation is needed, no thought necessary as to protection. With one hand braced against the pane behind Mary and the other grasping her hip, Doyle slams home in one powerful stroke. The pace he sets after that is just as strong, moving in sharp, staccato thrusts and gradually gaining speed, uninterrupted as his teeth catch her neck again and bite down hard.
Her cry now is loudest of all, and followed by several just like it. It's almost a howl. Mary has to close her eyes when her features contort as much as they have to from the force, and she lifts herself better onto the shallow prop of the sill, rolling her pelvis to meet his, going and going in something so base and primal that it passes beyond obscenity into a realm that needs a new name altogether. She doesn't even feel close to the end, and yet she's already on the verge of screaming— she keeps the grip of her arms around his neck tight, for dear life, and she says his name, Doyle, Doyle—
"— Doyle?" Brow furrowed, Mary's staring at him, slouched against the window frame, trying to make better eye contact. "Dude. You're not on anything?"
The glazed expression on Doyle's face soon starts to brighten back into alertness. First the voice is noticed, then the trail of smoke wafting from the tip of the cigarette dangling between his lips, unsmoked, then the window and the distinct feeling of discomfort that comes from such an involving fantasy. "Mm? Yeah." The statue comes to life, plucking the cigarette from his mouth and knocking some of the ash from the tip with a flick. "Sorry. Was just thinking. Happens sometimes." Only it usually happens for intellectual reasons.
Not quite sounding convinced, but maybe worried from the wrong cause: "... Okay. So... I'll be going. But we'll do more on this soon?" says Mary uncertainly. On that note, she heads back to where she dropped her coat and bag, starts getting both on again.
"Yeah, I'll . . . call you or somethin'. After I've had a look at it under the microscope." Doyle takes a deep drag from his cigarette, not turning around to watch her leave, but glancing over his shoulder at least when he adds, smiling, "See you."
"Right..." It's surely to both of their benefits that he wasn't too blatant in his reverie, and that she has grown acclimated to a certain default level of near-catatonia in him, or Mary would maybe leave more quickly than she does. Still, her gaze darkens once the door's clicked shut behind her.
