CONTINUITY WEENIE: Takes place at the end of "Kindred Spirits".
DISCLAIMER: Characters belong to RenPics. Sick ideas belong to me. The usual.
This was a response to a story challenge that basically went like this: "AMAZON BRA AMAZON BRA AMAZON BRA". High expectations will probably be disappointed.
Dharma Bum (dharmasbox@mail.com)
"So. Egypt, huh?"
"Yes, Egypt."
"That's a long way."
"It's not that bad."
"You'll be gone a long time."
"Yes."
"You never take me anywhere."
"Don't start with me." Gabrielle walked through the Amazon village with her head held high, and everyone stood back respectfully because she was a queen and everyone could see it. Joxer trotted along behind her, carrying the small bag like she'd asked, and trying his damndest to be witty and charming and yet make her see how intensely important it was he go to Egypt and not have to stay here all alone, and maybe get goat dung thrown at him again.
"I can help."
"Yeah, like you did around here?" She stopped outside the door of the supply hut and turned to face him, giving him a challenging look.
"I made myself useful. Ask anybody."
"Useful!" Gabrielle snorted and leaned back against the door, arms folded across her chest, head tilted up in what on any other woman would have been an invitation. "You practically made yourself a public utility."
"Well... go with what you're good at." He crowded her playfully into the door, curling his face into her hair. For a few delirious moments she allowed it, her soft sleek body sliding against his; then she snorted, not angrily, and pushed him away. He stepped back and she ducked around him and went into the hut.
Joxer followed, shaking his head. Gabrielle had no clue. Really. She went around doing these kind of things and she had no clue what kind of effect they had on him, and he supposed it was good she was so innocent and all and a lot of guys would probably like that, but he wasn't a lot of guys. On the other hand, if she knew about these things she did she would probably stop doing them, and he wouldn't want that either, so what was a guy to do? Right now a guy was to follow her into the store, and do whatever she wanted, because she was about to go away to Egypt and Xena and Eve were going too, and they all would be gone a long time and all he'd have would be a lot of memories of these kind of things she did to keep himself company.
The hut was lined with shelves stacked neatly with piles of folded leather and cloth. A row of peghooks along one wall held various elaborate Amazon robes, and there were necklaces and bracelets laid out on a table. In one corner of the room was a screen with a knee-length curtain hanging from it, and next to the screen was, unfortunately, Cyane. Cyane glared at him. He glared back, and was so busy glaring he belted his shin against a rack of boots and sandals and almost stumbled into Gabrielle. "Joxer, behave," Gabrielle said without turning around. He rubbed his shin and bit back the curse he'd been going to curse, and glared at Cyane some more.
Cyane ignored him and smiled. "Gabrielle! I thought you had left for Egypt?"
"We're leaving tomorrow. First I need to get a new outfit or two for the trip. Joxer, bag." Obediently he handed it over. Gabrielle opened it and brought out the small leather Amazon bra she had been wearing in the village, and her nice white fringed top she had gotten in Melodia. She handed them to Cyane. "Here. I have these for trade."
Joxer rather wished she wouldn't get rid of the fringed top. She had looked rather... "nice" wasn't exactly the word, but whatever the word was she sure as hell had looked that way in it. But as far as he knew she hadn't worn the top since the contest, and she was probably right about there being no need to carry extra stuff all the way to Egypt. Extra stuff such as him. "I want to go to Egypt," he said. He knew it sounded like whining but he couldn't help himself. "Why can't I got to Egypt?" he asked, making it worse.
"Joxer, don't be silly. You wouldn't like Egypt." Gabrielle straightened her halter, an interesting process, and another one of those things she really shouldn't do around him. "It's too hot."
"It's hot in Greece too," he pointed out.
"And the sun. With your skin? You know how easily you burn. You'd be miserable. And then we'd be miserable having to listen to you," she added, which was really kind of unnecessary. He sulked.
Cyane took the tops and studied them thoughtfully. "They both seem fine," she said. "Why not try them on and let me see if we have any bottoms that match, before giving them up?"
Girl talk. Joxer stopped paying attention and gazed idly around the room, looking for something of interest.
"I'm not all that sure I like either of them," Gabrielle was saying. "I mean, they're nice enough, but I'm not sure how they look."
"Try them on and let me see," Cyane said. She laid the tops neatly across the top of the screen. Joxer looked at the rafters, at the shelves, at a spider crawling steadily across the floor until it disappeared into a chink in the wall.
Gabrielle went behind the curtain, and the last possible interesting thing in the room vanished. He could see her feet and her shins under the edge of the curtain, but that was about it. "Do you need new boots, too?" he asked, trying to be helpful. After all, she had gotten the boots at the same time she had gotten the halter. If it needed replacing wouldn't the boots need replacing too?
"Of course not. Don't be ridiculous."
Joxer tried to figure out where his logic had failed, and couldn't, and felt stupid. Something appeared at the top of the screen, making him jump. It was Gabrielle's halter, which draped itself over the edge before the Amazon bra slithered down behind it and disappeared. Okay. This was interesting. Joxer started paying attention again. The curtain parted and Gabrielle came out wearing the Amazon bra, which somehow seemed a whole lot smaller when it was on her then when it was just sitting around doing nothing. "How does this look?" she asked Cyane.
"It looks fine on you," Cyane said. "You really should keep it. It's very practical for hot weather."
Gabrielle appeared to have forgotten he was in the room. Joxer somehow managed to tear his gaze away from the Amazon bra and look back on the floor for the spider, which had abandoned him, the traitor. Gabrielle had to have forgotten he was in the room, because otherwise she wouldn't be just asking for it standing there doing things like -- for pet's sake, she was adjusting them. He started watching again. He had no other choice.
"It's too small," Gabrielle said. "See? It pushes them up too much."
"It's a nice effect," Cyane said.
"They're practically falling out. And look at this cleavage, I could keep my lunch down there." She demonstrated. Joxer looked around for a chair to sit on and found nothing. Standing was becoming increasingly uncomfortable, also impossible, but it appeared to be the only option aside from fainting.
"It is tight," Cyane said, "but that's the point. It's a good warrior's top. Nothing extra flapping around to get in the way."
Gabrielle nodded. "Maybe. I like the other one better. It's more dressy, and I need a dressy one. But then... wait." She slipped behind the curtain. The Amazon bra appeared, laid over the top of the screen, and the fringed top vanished. Then Gabrielle came back out from behind the screen wearing it and she looked just as... "nice" wasn't exactly the word, but whatever the word was she sure as hell looked that way in it just as much it as he remembered. She pointed to the top, and the fringes swayed enticingly. "Now, this is pretty, but..."
He was definitely going to faint. Or explode. What was the matter with her, anyway? Doing stuff like this in front of him, and did he care about clothes, anyway, and did she have to sway those stupid fringes and set them... fringing like that? "You see? It's not supportive enough." Gabrielle bounced on her toes, the fringes and their cargo almost following the movement. "You understand? Too much motion."
"For active wear, yes. For dress, I think it looks quite nice." Cyane frowned. "I think I have something over here that would go well with that." She went to the shelves and started rummaging through the folded clothing.
Joxer tried to speak, but his mouth was too dry and he had to swallow twice and try again. "Look, Gabrielle, you don't need me for this. I think I'll go for a walk." Or, more likely, a swim. The water in that pond had looked like it would probably be cold enough.
"Joxer," Gabrielle said implacably, "stay."
He fumed, or would have fumed anyway if he'd had enough energy left to do it with, but all his energy was currently occupied elsewhere. What the hell was wrong with her? Couldn't she even try to understand what this kind of thing would be likely to do to him? Because it was doing it, sure enough. He was damn lucky his own top was long, and loose, because otherwise Cyane would figure it out and then she'd probably kill him. And it didn't seem like a bad idea at this point, frankly. What more could Gabrielle do to him anyway?
"Joxer." Gabrielle indicated her chest. "I need you to look at them and tell me which one is better."
Some small, still functional part of his mind warned: trick question. "Uh... I like them both the same?"
"You can't like them both the same. Pick one. Look at them both."
"I already am."
"In fact, look at all three."
A grey haze descended over everything.
"Joxer," she growled in that normally very appealing command tone.
"...Three?" he finally managed to squeak.
"This one," she indicated the fringed top, "this one," she said, pulling the Amazon bra off the screen with one hand, "and this one," she finished, pulling down the beaded halter in the other. "Which one do I want to keep?"
The haze slowly cleared. "Uh. Um. Keep them all. They're not very big. I mean... I mean they don't take up a lot of room. In the bag." That water had better be very, very, cold, that was all.
Gabrielle gave him an ominous look. He thought maybe he should just go down to the pond and drown himself in it and save himself a lot of trouble in the long run, but then Cyane came back with some more clothes. "Here," she said, distracting Gabrielle. He almost liked her for a moment.
Gabrielle tossed the tops back up onto the screen before looking through what Cyane was holding. She picked out a white leather skirt. "I like this one," she said, shaking it out and holding it at arm's length. Then she bent over a little and held it up against her belly, which set the fringes to fringing once again, and worse than that she was still facing him. Joxer managed to turn his scream into a choked-off gurgle.
Cyane glared at him again. Joxer glared back. If he was anything like Cyane thought he was, would he be standing here watching this and not saying anything? Heck no. If he'd been anything like Cyane thought he was, he'd have been across the room and behind that curtain in a flash the first time the halter had come off, never mind waiting for the fringe top to start fringing, but instead he was standing here, and not moving, and letting Gabrielle torture him to death and not lifting a hand against her. Because she didn't mean it, because she couldn't mean it, because she obviously just didn't even bother to think about what he felt. Because look at her there, now pulling that skirt around her hips and holding it in the back there so it fell right down from that wonderful round butt of hers, and... Cyane glared more, and too late Joxer remembered the instant-death theory. He didn't much care at that point though.
"I like that," Gabrielle said, apparently about the skirt. "The length is good. And you're right, it does go well. So this one stays, I guess." She folded the white skirt carefully and laid it over the top of the screen, then pulled the Amazon top down and held it up and made a face. "I'm not so sure about the ritual top, though."
"I have something for that, too." Cyane smiled, and gave Gabrielle what appeared to be a leather handkerchief. Very mysterious.
Gabrielle studied the little bit of hide, and she smiled too. She took it and went behind the curtain, and after a moment her pants fell to the floor around her ankles.
Joxer's brain, never reliable at the best of times, went south and left him stranded. What few functioning thoughts were left busied themselves throwing up pictures of what was going on behind the curtain. Then it opened, and the last of them twitched pathetically and died.
Gabrielle had on the little Amazon bra, which seemed to get smaller and smaller every time she put it on, and she had tied it even tighter than last time, and they were pushed up even higher... and then, around her hips, she was wearing what appeared to be a leather string. That was it.
"Now this I like," Gabrielle said. "Joxer, do you like it?"
Did he like it. He managed a squeak.
"It's very spartan," said Cyane. "Not Spartan, but the same idea. No extraneous material. Minimal coverage only."
"It stays on well," Gabrielle said and turned in a swift circle, miming an underhand-sweep, to demonstrate. Among other things, it demonstrated that the bra and the thong looked even smaller from the back. She finished the phantom attack facing him with her right arm holding the invisible sword overhead, the left one down at her side near her hip, and her back arched and them practically falling out, and she had the utter gall to ask him, "What do you think?"
What did he think? He thought he was going to lose it and start yelling at her right there. He thought he was going to turn and run and never come back. He thought he should tell her the facts of life, and the facts of guys, and most of all the facts of him, and he thought that if she really did care about him even one little bit she would have never done such a thing, and he thought that most of all he might start to cry.
And then he saw her wink at him.
No way. He shook his head, angry with himself; and she caught his eye, and very slowly, deliberately, winked again.
She wasn't ignoring his feelings. She knew exactly what she was doing. She had known it all along. The little...
And she turned her back to him and, without bothering to go behind the screen, slowly untied the straps of the little Amazon bra, and he gave up trying to think of a word, or of anything for that matter. She was so mean! He loved how mean she was. He watched everything he could see of the top coming off and the original halter going back on, and was utterly overcome with love and lust and admiration. Could there be anyone meaner? "Yes," Gabrielle said to Cyane, "this'll do." She turned and went behind the curtain, and he knew he wasn't imagining that she deliberately wagged her butt as she did so.
For some reason he was finally able to tear his eyes away, and he looked at the floor and there was the spider again. It trotted busily out of the chink in the wall and went to a hole in the floorboards where it once again vanished. Joxer smiled at it. Cyane glared. Joxer smiled at her. He wasn't mad at anybody right now. Not even Cyane. And he was going to need to use her pond, after all.
Gabrielle came out from behind the curtain, once again wearing her usual, and somewhat disappointing by contrast, outfit. She turned to Cyane, a really terrible wonderful mean smile on her face, and held up the Amazon bra. "You know, I think I will keep this one. And the thong, too." Her gaze flicked challengingly to Joxer and away again. "For... special occasions. Like going to Egypt."
"Like getting back from Egypt?" Joxer asked. He was rather proud of the way he kept the trembling out of his voice.
"Could be," Gabrielle said cruelly, and he quivered with delight. "Could be indeed."
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