The Best of You

[Cactus]

This was a disaster. The whole thing had turned into an unmitigated disaster. The small feeling that had started gnawing at his stomach as he'd fished himself out of the fountain had exponentially taken hold of more of his stomach as they'd made their way back to the hotel. In mostly silence - uncharacteristically for Lizzie. Morgan hadn't even really tried to say much to lighten the mood; the look on her face seemed to be wholly focused upon getting back to the hotel to a change of clothes.

What was there to say, anyway? He'd kissed her, she'd fallen in the fountain - and dragged him in for good measure. Her yellow shirt had turned transparent, and panic had set in.

All from a kiss.

((Morgan Dragosavich and Lizzie Lebowski continued from Something Better))

As they stood in the hotel elevator, waiting for it to slowly cart them back to the hotel rooms, Morgan's mind raced. He'd figured that kissing Lizzie had been the right thing to do, after all. They'd gone to prom together, reconnected a lot over the past little while, and things really seemed to be going well. It had seemed like the next natural step and the moment felt right to him. Usually he wasn't a terrible judge of these things, and while most of his high school dating experiences hadn't been overly lengthy, for someone who wasn't the classic example of a 'cool high school guy', he didn't often feel the devastating pangs of rejection that most of his classmates did. So why was this feeling in his gut aching so much?

The doors opened onto the eighth floor and Lizzie immediately shout out of the elevator in the direction of her hotel room. While this was the girls floor and Morgan knew he probably wasn't supposed to be here, all of the faculty that had joined them on the trip were elsewhere right now - this he knew. There was some sort of tour of the Capitol building going on that the two of them had opted out of, and the majority of the teachers were supervising that. Which was good - there was no one to yell at him for being here. He walked down the hallway after Lizzie, still carrying all of the bags for the both of them. It didn't leave much room for him to do things like open doors or push elevator buttons, but Lizzie's arms had been firmly glued to her chest, hiding any and everything from the viewing public.

"So, uh, don't forget, I have your bags?"

It was the first thing either of them had said in a few minutes, and he wasn't sure if she was mad at him or not. He wasn't even really sure what to do - if she was going to lock herself in her hotel room and he'd just bum around until his friends got back, or what? His mind was flying around in every direction now, the energy within him was pretty much all nervous energy. It was a far cry from the smoothness he'd felt before - and even right after - he'd leaned in and laid one on her. He hadn't wanted her to get hurt, or embarrassed. But it had happened anyway.

Dammit - he really had made a mess of things.

[Slam]

“Great, thanks, I’ll grab them in a moment.”

Lizzie headed into her room without meeting Morgan's eye. The embarrassment had died down, particularly now that she was out of sight and her shirt was just a little less see through, but she wasn't quite finished being mortified.

She shut the door behind her and leaned against it, letting out a sigh. None of her roommates were around, which was good because she really didn’t feel like explaining the situation to anyone. Not that there was that much to explain: she’d been kissed by Morgan, fallen into a fountain and her shirt had decided to run its own peep show.

She looked at her bag of clothes, but didn’t move from the door. She thought back to the part before the soaking, when Morgan had surprised her with her first kiss. Now that they were out of sight, the humiliation done and dusted, she could stop for a moment and react. She reached up to her lips, pressing her fingertips on the rosy flesh. Butterflies started to stir in her as she thought back to how it felt. Wet. Very, very wet. But very, very nice.

She found herself giggling, perhaps audibly, perhaps not. She slid down the door as her legs weakened, those butterflies going into overtime. She thought of Morgan, his handsome face and lovely smile, and how he was still waiting outside. His warm hand whose fingers she could practically feel. His masculine scent that she'd picked up on every now and then, that now seemed intoxicating in hindsight. His sweet ass. Oh goodness, did she think of him.

She looked at her bag again. She could get changed, go back outside, and just go about their day like not too much had happened.

Or she could do something else.

[Cactus]

Morgan set the bags down on the ground beside the wall of the hallway and leaned against the wall. If he were being honest, he was mostly trying to talk himself out of the conclusion that kept popping up in his head: he shouldn't have kissed her. The thing was? He didn't necessarily believe that.

All of the signs had been there. She had all but held his hand as they'd been sitting there at the fountain, and the past few weeks that the two had been spending time together, they'd been getting closer and closer. It didn't seem like things were strictly platonic, at least not anymore. While sure, they had history, it wasn't like they'd had a massive falling-out or anything. It'd been more of a gradual fade. Lizzie sure had with pretty much the entire grade, but that was neither here nor there.

Oh man. He'd basically ghosted her. The thought made him feel even more guilty.

His friends had been skeptical when he'd admitted to them that he was coming with a date; even moreso when he'd told them who it was. Michael was usually saying a lot more because of his body language than he would with his words, but when he'd confessed that it was Lizzie who'd be joining their prom table, he thought that his pal's eyes were going to explode out of his head. The reputation that she had accrued during most of high school preceded her, and he'd promised everyone that it would be okay. Repeatedly, and often.

Of course, it had. Prom had been fun, a ton of it. By the end of the night, it had seemed like people were warming up to Lizzie - Morgan included. So they'd kept spending time together. They'd kept warming up to one another. So had he been wrong? No, he didn't think so.

Morgan sighed. Reaching into his damp pants pocket, he withdrew his phone and unlocked it. He'd had a moment of panic over it after getting out of the fountain, but he'd sprung for a Samsung model that happened to be water resistant, so it was none the worse for wear. His Snapchat was still open - he'd been bombarding poor Ross Miller, who'd gone and fucked his shoulder up right before the trip and was waylaid at home. Lizzie had been inside for a few minutes, so he had time. Furrowing his brow a bit, he flipped the camera to front-face and held down the video button. His voice was hushed, only for the camera.

"Dude. I fell in a fountain. Totally soaked, from head to toe." Morgan smirked into the camera. "But I did the thing. I kissed her. That's how I fell in. So here's hoping tha-"

As he spoke, the door lock was unlatched, though nobody came out from the room. Instead, he heard Lizzie's voice from beyond the door.

"Morgan? You still out there?"

Eyes immediately going to the door, he forgot about the phone for a moment.

"Uh, yeah! I'm still here. Just drying out."

There was a pause, and then a response.

"Could you come in real quick?"

Exhaling, he nodded, and replied in the affirmative. He wasn't sure what she was about to say to him. Letting his thumb fall away from the phone, he quickly fired the message off to Ross - who he'd been talking relationships with lately anyways - and stuffed the phone back into his pocket. Grabbing the bags that still sat on the floor, he opened the now-unlocked door and stepped inside the hotel room.

As he closed the door behind him, he turned around, and the bags - much like his jaw, dropped to the floor.

[Slam]

Sat on the bed with her legs crossed, looking straight at Morgan leaning back to emphasise her sleek form, was a Lizzie Lebowski wearing nothing but her underwear.

“Hey sexy, how about –“ she tripped up, tongue tying itself. Crap, she hadn't expected words to be so hard suddenly.

“We uh - that kiss was super nice, and I just thought we could, you know…”

She batted her eyelashes at him, doing her best damn effort to appear seductive and alluring. If she batted them hard enough, it might even have disguised how she was trembling, heart threatening to shoot up her throat and out her mouth any second. She hadn’t had enough embarrassment for one day, it turned out.

“Do the Morgan-Lizzie Tango?”

She tried to add a sexy smile to the mix, but it came out as a mortified sneer. The anxiety was twisting her brain signals into an absolute mess of body language. Suddenly trying to be romantic and unexpected seemed like a rather daft idea.

Not that she didn’t want to fuck him, because she absolutely did.

How she'd gone from first kiss to wanting this to happen right now, she wasn't entirely sure, but she was jiggy with it. Why she'd decided that this was the best way to send him the signal was probably something to discuss with a psychology professional, but then she'd never been much for subtlety anyway. Besides, they were alone in the room and the day was special, so when were they going to have a better moment than this?

Carpe Diem, as her dad loved to say. He probably didn't have this in mind.

[Cactus]

Morgan's mouth moved in surprise, but no sounds - let alone words - came out. Instantly, all of his self-doubt and uncertainty were ejected from his brain, and for once everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. His face reddened a bit as the blood rushed to all different parts of his body. It wasn't that he was embarrassed; far from it. Taken aback might have been a better way to put it.

Desperately attempting to snap himself back on track, Morgan closed his open jaw, and smiled at Lizzie. On a good day, she was very attractive, and seeing her now sans most of her clothing only added to the funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. Regaining control of his motor functions and dismissing his stunned surprise, he felt the anticipation build within him. This wasn't his first rodeo, but most of his flings around the school had been just that - flings. He'd had party hookups, he'd had very surface relationships that usually went nowhere, but this seemed different than most of them. Their interaction had the benefit of history, the benefit of substance within it.

Maybe that was what excited him the most.

Actually, no. Definitely not. It was the nearly-nude girl on the hotel room bed. But the substance - that was a moderately close second.

Walking over to the bed, he sat down beside her, feeling as though he were in a dream. He'd still barely been able to formulate any words, but as he sat beside his friend (dance partner, lover, girlfriend - were those the descriptors to follow?), one thing weighed heavy in his mind. The kiss had been sudden, it had been probably a little unexpected at that particular time, and while he'd originally surmised that Lizzie was on board with it, this was an escalation. It was an escalation that he was more than happy with, but...

Morgan put a hand on Lizzie's shoulder. Perhaps because of the previously damp clothing, her skin was cool to the touch. It felt electric underneath his fingers. His fingers brushed against the bra strap on her shoulder, sending fun signals all over the place. Morgan smiled kindly at Lizzie, his expression completely earnest. She was nervous, he could tell now as he sat closer, so he kept the remarks and the jokes to a minimum.

"Okay. I'm on board. But," he could still smell the scent of whatever lotion or perfume she'd been wearing. It was nice.

"You're sure?"

The last thing Morgan Dragosavich wanted to do was pressure anyone into doing something they weren't comfortable with. He may have been wholly on board with what was about to happen; he wouldn't have kissed her if he hadn't been, but he wanted to make sure that she was too. Not because she felt that she had to.

But because she wanted to.

[Slam]

Lizzie tingled as Morgan’s fingers crept over her shoulder. She clasped her own hands between her legs, looking at Morgan out of the corner of her eye as she chewed on her bottom lip. She still smiled, as those butterflies kept on flapping south.

Was she sure?

She turned to face him completely, pulling her hands out of her lap to grab his head and bring him into a kiss. A long, involved kiss. It was clumsy and overdone in many ways, as she was guiding her tongue based off a single peck of experience. She threw everything she had into it regardless, letting herself get lost in the moment, until she finally had to come up for air.

“I’m sitting here in my underwear. I’d look pretty stupid if I wasn’t sure.”

She moved back in for another kiss, not letting Morgan get a word in. She moved her whole body in closer, guiding him down onto the sheets underneath her as the two stayed locked together in sweet, summery moment.

[Cicada]

((Camila Cañizares continued from Pool Puns-n-Harmony))
















Becoming acquainted with so many new faces just prior to the likely end of their shared time together was interesting. More entertaining than Camila would have thought. She had no regrets all the same, regardless of the fondness she had for the catch-up she'd played with some of the good people she'd spent the past four years passively ignoring.

"The stars above my family's farm shine brilliant-

On good days, even, you can clearly see the Milky Way itself."

Meilin was pleasant company. Well-carved and no rough-hewn edges, there was none of the more thorny repulsiveness that others among Camila's peers naturally projected. Camila believed that between the two of them there was a natural space for silences that did not feel misused.

"It's one of those things you get used to seeing all the time,

If you're not looking for it."

The room's lock clicked softly. The door creaked open.







Camila absorbed the scene in a quick pass, having been a bit too late to notice due to inertia carrying her feet far past the point of no return. For her, at least, there was a wall to lean against as she stopped herself in full and plain sight.

The strewn about bed sheets left particularly little to the imagination. Male- name unknown- and Lizzie twined themselves in a cozy looking way. Save the slightly awkward angle of penetration ongoing they could have fallen asleep together like that and Camila herself might have felt a twang of interest in such shared warmth. The pace of their copulating seemed reasonable in that moment that Camila had unadulterated vantage- not quite so obscene as to be pornographic, but definitely passionate in a way Camila supposed she could get the gist of if it had any sort of non-aesthetic appeal to her.

Well, as it was. Not much to say about the aesthetics of the matter.

"Meilin. Don't-"

Camila already knew she was too late in saying it- her comrade was moving about as fast. Camila could claim she at least tried to prevent the situation's getting even more hilariously awkward. Camila took a step back. Not far enough to still not be looking at everything- no, as if she'd be so merciful when the jokes all wrote themselves in neatly typed schadenfreude.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Meilin, still holding a little bag of swimstuff, was enraptured as Camila described the sky above her farm. A true starry night, a luxury she as a city mouse could only dream of.

You could say she was starry eyed!

"Ooh, I should visit your farm someday!"

As luck had turned out, she had misplaced her keys and only realized after she changed out of her swimsuit. That was okay, Camila still had hers, and the walk from point a to b was one Meilin enjoyed. Camila was pleasant company, with lots of interesting topics, but the two of them could still take a break and not talk. Sometimes that was all you needed.

The door opened and Camila stepped aside. Did she say something? Eh. She walked right in and set her bag next to a bed. Say, was it dim in here, or was it just her?

"Ah! And I can bring a telescope to-"

She looked up, getting an eyeful of her other roommate Lizzie and a boy she vaguely recognized but not really... Having sex.

What the heck.

Okay, now the only thing Meilin had to do is step away from the bed and out of the room and-

"Wow! How'd you get here?" she blurted out her immediate reaction, to the boy.

[Cactus]

He'd heard the sound.

His mind knew that it was that of a hotel door lock disengaging.

Followed by the click of the handle.

And then the heavy push of a door, followed by voices.

These were all sounds that Morgan knew; he could easily identify.

But he couldn't put two-and-two together fast enough. All of his mental acuity had been making sure that his partner was comfortable, and enjoying herself. He'd tried to keep everything slow and comfortable, even more so as he'd realized that this was her first trip around the proverbial block. The outside world had seemed to melt away as they'd come together. Lizzie was the only one in the world at this particular moment who mattered.

Until she wasn't.

The bedsheets had been pushed to the side during their activities, and as Morgan realized that he and Lizzie were now treating two of her roommates to a rather unexpected show, panic rose in the pit of his chest. Time seemed to stop for a moment as Morgan looked at the two girls and unfortunately made eye contact with one of them. Was she on the volleyball team?

"Shit!"

The second lasted for what seemed like an hour until Morgan finally managed to right the laws of physics and act. Gently disengaging himself from Lizzie, he reached over and grabbed one of the sheets, quickly pulling it over the both of them and rolling off of her to the side of the bed.

The side of the bed that suddenly wasn't there anymore.

Having misjudged the amount of room beside Lizzie, Morgan cried out in surprise and tumbled out of the bed in what seemed like slow-motion. Hitting the carpeted hotel room floor with an "oof", he felt the cheeks of his face flush bright red as his other cheeks felt the coarse rug on his skin.

Time stopped once more, and Morgan Dragosavich was all out of actions to make it start moving again. His mouth felt frozen and he couldn't find any words. So instead he just sat there on the floor, in all of his stark naked glory, in this moment that felt like it would never end.

[Slam]

Now, Lizzie Lebowski was a comedian who prided herself on having appropriate, but spot-on, well-timed comebacks to all manner of situations. After all, there was comedy to be found in most things in life if you could string the right words together.

The time arrived when she realised Morgan had stopped his very awkward, just a little bit silly, but very sexy motions. She saw the door open behind his turning head, two of her not-all-that-familiar roommates standing in plain view of all their glory.

And just like that, instead of witty words coming out of her mouth all she could do was scream in shock. She was so focused on the two arrivals that she didn't register Morgan's scrambling to cover them both until it was too late and his goods were on full display. Being sat in the bed and looking down at his naked self on the carpet just made the situation feel even more humiliating, somehow.

"Can you guys knock first next time, maybe?!"

She wanted nothing more than to burrow her bright red face (half from the embarassment, half from the steam sex she'd been enjoying up until a few seconds ago) in her hands, but they were too occupied keeping the sheet pulled over herself for such things.

[Cicada]

A more rational pair could have disengaged with grace.

None of this struck her as particularly embarrassing anyways. She shrugged in good humor.

"It is our room." She didn't bother to disguise the smile- no need to lie, this was fairly entertaining for novelty alone.

"Don't they leave socks or signs of some sort on the door handle in this sort of situation? This could all have been averted." In any number of ways save failed flailing. Camila glanced at Meilin at that, bouncing the remainder of the retort her way. No need to finish the thought when it didn't particularly matter. Camila had very little applicable advice, except, perhaps:

Don't do that. 'That', referring to the lack of preparation or of common sense.

She kept her eyes casually averted, finding interest in the drawn curtains. At least they'd done that much with foresight. There was nothing much to look at anyways, as Camila had long since proven to herself that nudity was hardly worth a second glance after the punchline dropped. She'd been there and she'd done that- well, not this far through the proverbial bases, anyways.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Meilin looked to Lizzie and her screaming. Luckily Morgan had thrown a blanket over her before she could get more unpleasant sights. Sadly his efforts were for naught- she then looked to Morgan. He was lying on the floor stark naked and...

Huh.

Lizzie was kinda lucky.

She quickly averted her gaze. It couldn't have been longer than a second. Right? Right?!

And then she looked to Camila. She had just finished saying something but she wasn't entirely sure what aside from putting socks on doors, which she thought was some sort of code for doin' it in a room. There was probably more nuance to it than that, wasn't there? Though socks were a well known symbol of-

She looked back to Lizzie, how red her face looked. Having a face that red probably isn't good for anyone. Was it possible to develop anemia due to blushing? No, but if you could, Lizzie would probably be on the verge of it.

So, she raised her arms and put her hands where Lizzie could see them, and backed out of the room.

"Sorrysorrysorry-"

Thump.

"Sorry!"

Turning, she then realized her back hit the door, which swung open just enough to allow her exit. With only a brief pause, she scurried out.

If Morgan could sneak into their room and Do Stuff with Lizzie, she imagined hiding in Ace's room while this blew over would be a comparatively small deal. Unless someone was Doing Stuff in their room. Damn. Might as well go have an early lunch- no, wait, her wallet was in her room... she resigned herself to going for a walk.

[Meilin Zhou continued elsewhere]

[Cactus]

The carpet felt scratchy on his bare behind - in a moment that seemed to last a lifetime, that was the only thing that continued to go through Morgan's head. Over, and over again; nothing but the damned hotel carpet. He sat there, dumbfounded and embarrassed until one of Lizzie's roommates had the good sense to hurry out of the room. At that moment, the true reality of his situation hit him like a ton of bricks.

He was on the floor of the hotel room.

Naked.

Wearing nothing but a condom.

Morgan's face instantly went beet red, and the only thing he could think of to do was to quickly stand up and dive back into the bed and under the covers. Lizzie was mortified, of course, and now that Meilin had fled (though not without giving him the elevator look, which - lovely), the situation seemed only half-mitigated. So he looked up at the other half of the conundrum, his head poking out from beneath the comforter.

"So, um," he started, expectantly waiting for Camila to take the hint. For her credit, she wore an expression of amusement rather than mortification, so at least he'd probably be able to look her in the eyes later on.

"Would you, uh, be able to give us a few minutes?"

Mentally he smacked himself. That could be interpreted so many different ways, though in truth, he figured that the smart play was to gather his things and flee the room, leave the floor, run away from the hotel, evacuate the city, depart the state and deport himself from the country.

The moment had quite obviously passed them by, though he sincerely hoped that they'd get another. Preferably back at home, where people weren't about to wander in unmolested. Yeah, that'd be really nice.

His face remained bright red, though as he tried to hide as much of himself underneath the covers as he could, his skin brushed against Lizzie's and he was reminded that as embarrassing as this may have been right now?

Morgan didn't regret a second of it.

[Cicada]

"Sure. If you need that long to finish up."

She departed, having learned little that past minute that was truly noteworthy.

((Camila Cañizares pregame concluded))

[Slam]

So hey, turned out Camila was kind of a bitch. Who knew?

Lizzie groaned and threw her head under the covers as the door clicked shut. Even with Morgan right there, that musky scent that had turned her on moments ago so close, his ding-dong in grabbing distance, she was no longer in the mood for any coitus.

Apparently, her tits showing through her shirt for half an hour hadn’t been enough for one day. No, she needed people she only kind-of-sort-of-but-not-really knew to get a face full of them during her first time, which would now be remembered as that time her room-mates walked in on her with a guy. Well, that definitely wasn't something that did it for her, it turned out. She would have to get some heavy-duty locks for her college dorm. Or at least agree a schedule in advance.

Would they go and blab about it to everyone else on the trip? Probably. She could imagine the news going up on Facebook already. Had they snapped any pictures? She didn’t remember anything like that, but she wasn’t exactly paying close attention. At this rate she’d wind up going down the same road as Brady. Fan-frickin-tastic. As much as she wanted to portray herself as harmless and not a bitch anymore, there was a difference between making yourself look stupid and someone else plastering your naked ass all over the internet. There was a terrifying thought she could do without, but she was now stuck with.

Rather than try to make conversation with Morgan to explain any of these concerns though, she just continued to groan and pull the blanket down over herself. Because why communicate when you could just make noise?