Of Baths and Booze [Ryvian]

“I may,” Indivara teased playfully, her eyebrows wiggling as she peered over Ryvian’s shoulder at the boy, grinning brightly. She was pleased to see some part of the friend she knew peering out from under the cloud of self-pity. She did not blame him for feeling sorry for himself; she had been as bad (if not worse, in her own way) when Kerrin had Impressed. She just was not interested in letting him wallow there for too long. He was far more fun when he was happy and being an annoying sexaholic with far too many ideas of what he’d do to her, than when he was drowning in his self-inflicted unhappiness.

Leaning back again, Indivara roughed up his hair a bit more, watching the foam flick in random directions, before lowering her hands to put light pressure on her friend’s shoulders, encouraging him to drop under the water and scrub the sand out. She did not have the strength herself to dunk him, and was not too keen on encouraging him to drown himself, or dunk her in return. Indivara brushed his hair back from his face as he breeched the surface, hands trailing lightly down his back. “Probably,” she murmured lowly as she rubbed soap sand between her hands and then spread it over the top of Ryvian’s shoulders.  The silence that had occurred between his statement and her answer had been decent, but hardly important to the girl, who continued the conversation as if there had been no silence at all.

“You were willing to tell her Varlea was yours, though,” Indivara pointed out quietly, encouraging Ryvian to stand by digging her fingers into his ribs when her soapy hands met the surface of the water. She grunted in startled pain when he rewarded her efforts with an elbow to her still tender guts, and the girl shoved him roughly in the back in retaliation with a wordless, but no less angry, cry, forgetting about the soap coating both his skin and her own.

As a result, Indivara face planted into Ryvian’s back with a squeal of shock when her hands slipped across his skin with skidding little jumps, before meeting nothing but cold air. Grabbing at his chest with clawed fingers, arms wrapped tight, Indivara managed to save herself from collapsing completely into the water, and stood frozen for several moments before relaxing slowly. Indivara dropped her head again against Ryvian’s back, a small, short-lived motion that clearly stated what an idiot she currently believed herself to be. After all, what kind of fool tries to shove a soapy body with soapy hands?! “That was stupid,” she murmured, knowing well enough that while Ryvian may well agree with her, he would never state such a fact himself (or, at least not under normal circumstances); her actions might be stupid, but she still could house a decent punch.

Stepping back, she withdrew her hands from the young man and dunked them in the water, rinsing them off before wiping soap that had transferred from his back to her, off her face. “There is clothing down the hall,” she added, deciding to keep her playful comment of their streaking through the Weyr to herself after such a stupid stunt, and she plucked the wet shirt from where it was stuck against her with soap and water uncomfortably. She had not planned to get so wet, and was less than thrilled with how clingy the garment had become.

Sighing irritably at herself, Indivara stepped forward again, soaping up her hands and fighting off the completely hormonal and undesired urge to cry as she did so. She would not cry! She had done far too much of that in the past several months, and she didn’t want to freak out Ryvian. Besides, she was supposed to be making him feel better, albeit not quite in the way he would probably most appreciate! That allowed a small smile to creep over Indivara’s face, though she blinked in surprise when she found Ryvian facing her, instead of with his back to her, which was how she was quite sure she had left him. The girl shrugged, and smeared soap over his chest with both hands.