hot_water | OOM: Bringing the Outside In

Entry tags:

oom,
oswin

OOM: Bringing the Outside In

Tahno requests a very specific room from Bar. It's gigantic--he can't see one end from the door--and painted with a sky and clouds motif. The ceiling and walls have heat lamps installed to make it swelter.

It's also filled with sand. The amber grains spill out of the plain, blue door as he opens it. Potted plants dot the landscape, and Bar was even kind enough to lay out a couple of chairs with towels near the empty pool. Whistling a jazz tune his band covers, Tahno heads out to the lake to steal water to fill the pools.

The waterbender takes more than one trip, hauling several tons of water through the bar each time, but eventually his private beach is finished. All he needs to do now is to knock on Oswin's door and hand her the key.

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He's beaten to the punch - Oswin's leaning against the wall in the hall, waiting for him.

Hey, she saw him moving a lot of water via her surveillance network, and... well. She's curious.

"Just the girl I wanted ta see," Tahno drawls, spinning the key around his finger in its ring. "I got somethin' ta show ya. Come with me?"

"Frequently." She smirks, but she pushes off of the wall to show willing.

Tahno laughs, and loops an arm around her as he leads her down the stairs. "Now ya gotta promise not to freak out."

"I will promise no such thing, but I find it highly unlikely that you're going to manage that." She retorts.

And the smirk hides a small and highly irrational fear that he has a Dalek penned up or something. Yes, she knows it's stupid. It's why she doesn't say anything about it.

Tahno smiles at her, though it's really half a smirk, and leads her to a door which is already opened and has sand spreading out from the room. "I made ya that beach," he explains superfluously, and stops right before they cross the threshold so that she can see inside the gigantic, landscaped room.

She blinks at their surroundings owlishly, feeling the warmth radiating up through her shoes.

She feels that she ought to be... something. Sad she can't go out and see the real thing without having a problem. Angry about the same thing. Worried that he picked up on it.

Something like that.

Instead, she hugs him, burying her face in his shirt. That means tears don't count.

Tahno threads his fingers in her hair, rubbing her back with his other hand. He has no idea what to do with tears, so he just pretends that she's not crying. That she's so happy, she's laughing instead.

His shirt getting wet doesn't shatter the illusion just yet.

She rallies, because honestly he has... well, sort of worked hard, definitely planned hard, and sobbing at him isn't much of a reward. So when she looks up it's with a smile - wobbly and soggy one, to be sure, but still.

"It's lovely."

Tahno watches her. She's rather unpredictable to him in this moment. He waggles his fingers near her face, bending her tears away from her cheeks and throat and cleaning her up.

Then he clears his throat. "Yeah, I'm pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself," he drawls. "And I do."

He loops an arm around her waist and takes her hand in his, leading her into the room, sand shifting under their toes. "Here, putcher hand on the wall here... made of some hard material. We can walk 'round the room, so you can see it's a confined space."

She should explain, protest that she's not that broken, that she's been outside (does a dinosaur-infested island count?), it's... the rocks and the cold and the snow and...

The protests die in her throat, and she runs her hand over the painted wall.

"Your work?"

"Nah, all I did was move the water around," he admits, a bit more comfortable now that she's back to her bubbly, sometimes snarky self. He starts walking, drumming his fingers on her hip. "I ordered the room from Bar. Came complete with sand and potted plant landscaping."

"Well, seems Bar likes me after all." You have to worry after you've been banned from the kitchen five times in a row, after all.

Tahno snuggles her, drawing her close. "Nah, 'course she does. Who wouldn't like ya? Yer very likable," he drawls, and presses a kiss to her temple. "Hey, you should get that skimpy little swimsuit you like to tease me with."

"Yeah, I think that would work here." If only because it's a bit too warm for her usual clothes. "Be back in a flash." She promises, stretching up on her toes to kiss him briefly.

Tahno kisses her quick, and dashes off himself to change into his navy blue tanktop and tight black shorts. His room is closer, so he manages to arrive back at the indoor beach before Oswin does.

She returns, having failed to consider a cover-up (what? She's wearing clothes, what's the point of wearing a cute swimsuit if no one can see it?), and stops steps within the door, grinning down at the sand shifting between her toes.

Tahno spots her and waves. He jogs over, completely at home in the sand. "Hey, cutie. Wanna come swimmin' with me?" he asks, but then takes her hand and leads her to the water.

The waves gently break on the shore due to a wave generator Bar kindly installed, and stretch deep blue across the horizon. Amber sand deepens to a dull brown when wet. Tahno releases her hand with a grin, running backwards for a moment before he splashes into the water, bending a wave up to crash down near him.

She laughs at his antics, taking her entry into the water more slowly - she's never been in a body of water that moves of its own volition before.

"You are ridiculous." She informs him once he resurfaces.

He bends the water out of his perfect hair before flicking his fingers at her, grinning like a loon. "Nah, I can't help showin' off. I'm the best there is," he explains, as if commenting on the artificial weather.

"Hey we could go surfin' if we want to," he says eagerly, his excitement similar to a kid's. "I can bend up some boards."

He takes her hand again, and wades slowly with her. "How ya doin'?"

"I'm alright, really, this is wonderful." She assures him, flicking water back in his direction. "What's surfing?"

"What's surfin'! Oh, man," Tahno drawls, shaking his head. "Here, lemme show ya."

He releases her hand and strides into the water to his hips. Then he whips his hands out, freezing a rectangle of ice, which he shapes into a respectable surfboard.

The boy grins at her, and then sits on his board to ease himself into a stand. He whips his hands back, propelling himself through the water through bending--and then bends a huge wave over his head, which he crouches slightly on his board to ride back to the shore.

She watches this display with wide-eyed wonder - this is not something she'd even considered before.

"Oh, I've got to try this."

"See? Just like that," Tahno drawls, grinning. He bends her another board, and guides her out to deeper water.

"Try sitting on the board, first," he says. "Then we can try standing, and makin' some waves."

She looks a little dubious at that but, hey, he's the one who's already learned to do this, clearly that's how it's done. So after a couple false starts she manages to climb aboard.

And immediately discovers a very pressing problem. Promptly after straddling her board as ordered, she yelps, treating Tahno to some prime futuristic swearing.

That is damn cold right where you don't want ice to be!

"Ah, yeah, sorry, I forgot to warn ya that ice is cold," Tahno deadpans. He climbs on to his own board, and floats right over to her. "Here, take my hand, and let's crouch--and then stand."

She takes his offered hand, which is probably a good thing has her board wobbles when she moves to get to her feet. In this, however, she's fearless...

Perhaps a bit too much so as her confidence sends her tipping too far to one side.

"Ca-reful," Tahno says, already in a standing position. He tugs her back, trying to rebalance her. "See, what we should be doin' is lyin' down on the boards and then poppin' up into a stand."

"... We're not lying down." Oswin vetos that plan right off, because no, not in this swimsuit anyway.

She likes her skin non-frozen, thanks.

"Next time, I'll get boards from the bar," Tahno promises. He starts bending the wave slowly, checking on her once in a while. "Bend yer knees a little, and catch the wave."

It's a smaller wave than what he caught before, but it's still a wave.

She squeaks, laughing excitedly when the boards move beneath their feet. And really, she doesn't stay on long, or well, or anything like that. Surfing genius she isn't.

But from the way she's giggling when she resurfaces, she's certainly a fan.

Tahno stays on, but dives off when he notices her take a spill. "Aw, yeah, that's... Awright. Yer doing fine," he drawls, shaking his head with a grin. "Here, straighten out, and hold yer hands out. Ya can jump and catch the wave on yer belly and ride it all the way ta shore."

Oswin side-eyes him, but if anyone's going to be knowledgeable about things to do in water, it's him. So she does as he says, leaping when the next wave comes in her direction.

Tahno cheats. He raises his hands, and catches her with the water, carrying her at speed to the shore, as he said. He follows shortly afterwards on his own wave, turning over to lie on his back on the sand.

She's laughing, uproariously, as she stumbles to her feet in the tumbling aftermath of the wave, already wading out towards deeper water to do it again.

Tahno snickers, watching her as he props himself up on his elbows. Sand clinging to his skin, he pushes off the shore and follows her in to the water to catch her again.

She doesn't stop until she's actually tired (not tired of doing it, no, but eventually jumping up against water off of shifting sand becomes difficult), and resorts to floating on the the water, staring up at the painted sky.

"You're right, beaches are awesome."

Tahno rests his hand on her stomach, his other cradling her cheek. "See? I told ya. And you can come ta this one anytime you like, ya got me?" the boy drawls. "Tell me sometimes, though, if yer gonna wear this sexy little number again."

"Because I'm not smoking hot all the time?" Oswin retorts - she has no problems with her current body image, thank you very much.

Some deep problems with those few times she's wondered what the whole 'and now I'm a Dalek' thing did to her. She tries not to do that.

"I should send a message when I'm going to wear something not awesome, it'd save time."

Tahno snorts. "Come mere, you," he drawls, and lifts her up effortlessly, despite the way his muscles ache from moving all that water and catching her as often as he did.

He places one hand on her hip and grasps the other hand, humming a slow, sultry jazz number. The boy twirls her in the water, flinging her out and pulling her back, and then returns to slow dancing, leading them by toeing the sand underneath the warm water.

Her feet don't even come close to touching the bottom, so this is more like flying than anything else.

Turns out that's pretty awesome too. And as an added bonus, when dancing in the water instead of on dry land, she's at the perfect height for some necking between spins.

That's a pretty awesome bonus.

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OOM: Bringing the Outside In

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