Work Text:
“We’re sitting in the back today,” Malia hissed in Kira’s ear, grabbing her sputtering girlfriend’s elbow and directing her towards the last row. Malia knew this was ultimately futile, since in their Observational Figure Drawing had about twenty students, so there was only two rows of set up in a circle around the model platform, but even a foot of space between them and . . . well, she needed some space.
“What, why?” Kira asked, matching Malia’s hushed voice. They were one of the first ones here, as usual. Their apartment was pretty close to the sMFA’s building and the weather had blessed them with no new layers of snow this morning, so they got here in record time. It was the classroom of Kira’s dreams; one wall had floor to ceiling windows, the floor was hard wood and the walls were stark white, and the sun always shone through at exactly the right angle in the mornings to illuminate the model’s platform. Ignoring the salt stains from the winter boots, the rickety chairs that nearly toppled over if you leaned too much to one side, and the charcoal smudges on the wall from a very enthusiastic final project a few years back, it was Kira’s dream come true. She knew Malia would rather be in the 3D studio, burying her hands into a block of clay the size of her head, but the sMFA suggested a well-rounded course schedule for their first few years before specifying their fine art of choice.
The two girls settled into the second row, their backs to the windows and their shadows being thrown across the room as several other students began to slowly meander in. They started to dig around for their various pencils at the bottom of their bags when Malia started again
“Because,” Malia said. “You’re ogling.”
“I’m what.”
“Ogling Lydia Martin.”
“I . . . what . . . I mean she’s an attractive person . . .” Kira attempted before Malia’s eyebrows rose. “Okay maybe I was ogling a little bit.”
“If we’re going to ask her out after class, she can’t have seen you drooling for the entire period, okay?”
Malia looked far too involved in fiddling with her bag’s zipper as Kira gapped at her.
“Excuse me?” Kira squeaked, frozen.
“You heard me.”
“We? We’re asking her out?” Her eyes widened and her bag fell out of her lap and onto the floor with a hard thud.
“You’re tablet is in there,” Malia deadpanned, still avoiding her eyes.
“Malia Tate, why are we asking out . . .” And Kira never finished her sentence as the object of their mutual desire finally walked out of the dressing room in the back of the classroom. In only a robe. And her legs went on for miles. And this was totally inappropriate because artists were professional with their models and oh dear lord this isn’t fair.
Kira knew Malia was on the same boat as her with Lydia Martin. They walked out of their first figure class and immediately started gushing – well, Kira gushed, Malia passionately nodded her head – about their model who was being paid for the entire semester. A dream come true. They talked about her over coffee, at breakfast before class, and a handful of times while they were in situations that required significantly less clothing. When Malia started whispering filthy things with her hand down Kira’s underwear, she didn’t exactly pause to say that was weird. Quite the opposite, she gasped and begged for Malia to continue, to describe what they would do if Lydia was here with them. What her breasts would look like if they weren’t posed in a still life but instead, moving in tandem with them and –
Kira had to full stop. She squirmed momentarily in her seat before firmly moving her mind back to the problem at hand; talking about bringing another girl – albeit, hot and amazingly unattainable girl – was all fine and good in the heat of the moment.
And said girl was dropping her robe.
“How are we going to ask her out?” Kira asked.
Malia rolled her eyes.
-
Much to Kira’s horror but not surprise, Malia’s plan to ask out Lydia Martin was to simply go up to her and ask.
“It got me you,” Malia pointed out, shoving her drawing pad back in her bag, making Kira wince.
“That’s because I am little bit of a moron!” Kira whispered, side eying Lydia pulling her robe back on and stretching her arms over her head to shake out the pins and needles of the last position that she held for half an hour.
Malia looked offended by that. She grabbed Kira’s hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. “No, you’re not.”
And just like that, Kira was smitten again. Much to Malia’s embarrassment, Kira leaned over and pecked her cheek. The small smile on Malia’s lips gave her away, and Kira knew that she didn’t mind that much.
Lydia was finishing chatting with the professor and was starting to make her way back to the changing room when Malia tightened her grip on Kira’s hand and dragged her towards her.
“Lydia?” Malia and Kira pulled up next to the dressing room door. Kira impulsively clutched Malia’s hand and leaned against the door in an attempt to not only look cool but to assure that her knees weren’t going to give out. Malia seemed collected enough, looking Lydia Martin straight in the eye. “We were wondering if you wanted to go out with us sometime.”
“Out?” Lydia raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. Her eyes darted down to the two girl’s clasped hands and then to Kira’s face, who looked a bit like she was going to be sick, before landing back on Malia’s. “With the two of you?”
“Yup,” Malia responded.
“Like, on a date,” Kira supplied. Both Malia and Lydia looked at her, and she shrank back into the wall a bit, cheeks flushing.
“What time?” Lydia asked and the two freshmen blanched. Both were so caught up in the how they forgot about the when.
“Fri . . . day?” Kira’s voice lifted towards the end. Malia nodded next to her.
“Around 8,” Malia supplied when Kira went silent next to her.
“Perfect,” Lydia responded, still staring at them. “Now, could you two move, so I can get my clothes? I’m a bit underdressed for the weather at the moment.”
“Of course!” Kira said, as they both moved, side stepping as Lydia popped into the dressing room and then reappeared, shoving her iPhone into Malia’s hands with expressed instructions to put their names and numbers in there and not to touch another thing. Kira and Malia took it upon themselves to also add a contact picture, taking a few selfies on Lydia’s phone. By the time Lydia emerged fully clothed, the two freshmen were giggling while trying to contort their faces in the camera. Lydia smiled to herself, wondering what she just agreed to.
-
“I think I was just courted by two freshmen.”
Allison looked up from her script as Lydia set down two mugs of tea on their coffee table before joining her roommate on the couch. She was curled up underneath several blankets, one from Lydia’s bed she noticed, my the living room window. Lydia used to nag her about the draft the window lets in, only making her colder, but Allison insisted that it was the best place in the apartment to memorize lines.
Allison scoffed and reached for her tea. “MIT freshmen? Don’t they know you don’t date MIT boys?”
Lydia hummed for a moment, letting her own tea warm up her hands. Boston was colder than anticipated and even though she loved it, she was much more used to warm, California air.
“Actually, they were from the sMFA class,” Lydia supplied. Allison was well aware of the modeling; Lydia made it very clear that Allison can waitress in the theater district all she wants but Lydia would not be touching other people’s dirty dishes. Instead, when the Museum of Fine Arts’ Master of Fine Arts was hiring for an obscene amount per class, Lydia had jumped. It never failed to amuse Allison that the MFA had an MFA program, most locals were accustom to the odd art kids wandering around their little area of the city, looking for their next inspiration.
“Where they cute?”
“Very,” Lydia responded with a small smile on her lips.
“Lydia Martin, did you say yes? To two freshmen? How does that even work?” Allison asked, suddenly emerging from her blanket cocoon to sit up straight, lines forgotten.
“Well, I think they are a couple.”
“Wow. So, two . . . guys?”
“Girls.”
There was a pause as Allison digested this. “So, how exactly . . .”
Lydia shrugged. “When in Rome, Ally.”
Allison was one to roll with the punches and Lydia wasn’t worried about Allison’s ability to catch up. They’ve known each other for six years at this point and have been roommates for the last three. When you brave a New England winter together there is only so much else that can surprise you.
“So . . . do you know their names?” Allison asked, pulling her laptop from the coffee table and opening up Facebook. Lydia grinned.
“Malia Tate and Kira Yukimura.”
“Well, they sure look cute,” Allison mumbled, pulling up Kira’s profile. Her picture was of her and Malia, smiling in front of one of the huge snow banks outside of the MFA.
“Yeah,” Lydia said. “They are.”
-
Friday night was a disaster.
Lydia was attempting to walk the six blocks to the couple’s apartment in heels just as Mother Nature decided to give Boston another foot and a half of snow on top of the seven they already had. Shivering and slightly damp, she finally rang the apartment’s doorbell only ten minutes after 8. Silently cursing the parking ban that Boston decreed after the first half dozen feet of snow hit the cramped streets, Lydia pushed open the large door when it started buzzing. Luckily, she only had to climb one flight of stairs and barely knocked on the door until Kira answered it, bouncing on her toes excitedly.
“Hey! You made it safely!”
Lydia smiled. “Yeah, though my shoes are a bit worse for wear.”
Kira giggled, feeling giddy, and stood aside to open the door wider.
As it turns out, the two seem to work within a thirty minute buffer, so while Kira ran around trying to find missing phones and wallets amongst the cluttered apartment, Malia tried to herd her into the kitchen and away from the living room-turned-art-studio.
Which failed miserably when Lydia recognized herself on the walls of the room.
“Yeah, we hang out our best pieces,” Malia mumbled in response to Lydia stepping over a large pile of scrap paper to get a better look at the sketches of her taped to the wall. She zeroed in on a smaller one, hung up between the two windows in the room.
“This is from last week right? I remember my hair was in those milkbraids,” Lydia said, fingers skimming the edges of the page. “This is beautiful.”
“Kira did that one,” Malia said, her voice filling with pride.
When Kira was finally ready, Malia and Lydia were chatting away in the living room, dragging out different art pieces and comparing the two girl’s styles. Kira jumped in, and started asking Lydia about MIT and her labs. Eventually, they moved to the dining room table, also cluttered with art supplies, to nibble on the grapes Kira had set out in an attempt to look fancy.
It felt like minutes, but when Lydia looked out of the window, she realized that the snow that was falling earlier had piled up on the window sill. It looked like a much larger amount than the projected amount.
Kira noticed where Lydia’s gaze went. “Oh, crap!”
“What?” Lydia asked.
“We were going to take you out to a bar near here,” Malia answered, getting up from the chair and peering out of the window, around the small drift on the sill. “But I don’t think we want to walk anywhere tonight.”
“I only brought these shoes,” Lydia said, frowning a bit, looking down at her heels. “I’m sure I’d survive though.”
“It’s getting a little crazy out there. And icy,” Kira said, hand touching Lydia’s. “You are absolutely welcome to stay here the night.”
The girls were all in agreement on that front.
Eventually, they broke out the wine and junk food. They told antics of their experiences with the insane Boston weather, lamenting their California breed attitudes towards actual weather. They spoke of terrible exes and teachers and what food they liked. Lydia ranted about sexism in STEM and her favorite Noble Prize and Field’s metal winners. Kira started gushing about her favorite artists and color theory. Malia shared her odd upbringing and tried to explain the differences in clay for sculpting. And eventually, around three in the morning, when Malia tried to take the couch, Lydia laughed before grabbing Malia and kissing her slowly. She turned to Kira next to give her another open mouthed kiss while Malia eagerly started licking Lydia’s neck.
Malia was ever thankful that Kira talked her into the queen sized bed.
-
Monday morning, Kira and Malia found themselves back in the figure drawing classroom, on the edges of their seats. Lydia was in her robe but chatting with their professor, not meeting the pointed gazes of both girls.
“She hasn’t texted us,” Kira said, nudging Malia’s foot.
“I know.”
Lydia had slipped out wordlessly Saturday morning. Kira and Malia were the opposites of morning people and stood no chance in getting up to say goodbye.
“What if we messed up.”
“We didn’t.”
“But . . .”
Before Kira could finish, her professor started role call. Lydia climbed gracefully up onto the modeling platform and dropped her robe. She looked at the two, winked, and then struck her first pose of the class by sweeping her hair back and holding an almost ballet stance. This perfectly revealed the trail of deep purple hickey’s that ran down her throat and over her collar bone.
Kira flushed, Malia stared, and Lydia tried not to gloat over successfully giving the two girls in front of her lady-boners in the middle of class.
The professor had to call each of Malia and Kira’s name three times before they registered enough to hear him and call out a hasty “here.”
When class was done and Malia and Kira felt as though they could breathe again, Lydia tied her robe back over her shoulders and whisked past them back towards the changing room.
“Same time this week, ladies?”
Kira and Malia’s faces lit up and Lydia flushed a bit, the smile never leaving her face.