RP: A Room for Cannons

Lita has pushed all the furniture from the front living room into a haphazard pile against one wall and smeared the opposite wall with a few different paint colors. Varying shades of blues, yellows and greens, all of which she's decided she hates. Blue seems too obvious a choice for a beach house. White seems too sterile. Which left some option of a pastel yellow or green? She should have asked Lora for her help. Lita might be an artist but her talents apparently did not convey well into interior design. She's stretched out in one of those oversized chairs, dressed in a pair of shorts and tee shirt- probably one of Mahri's- with a beer on her knee, wondering if the furniture is the real problem. Yeah. The wall colors would look different with new furniture, wouldn't it? And curtains. Maybe a rug or two? Geezus she was nowhere near toasted enough for this.

Mahri took the short flight of stairs from the sand to the elevated porch two at a time. Only to find, upon walking into the villa, that a small hurricane had moved through and all the furniture had been shoved to one side. Lita, laying on one of those chairs, might as well have been part of the destruction but for the beer propped on the woman's knee. Leaning into the doorway, one foot crossing the other and arms casually crossed beneath her bosom, Mahri quirks a brow then follows Ace's eyes to splashes of paint on the wall. "Redecorating, love?"

Lita tilts her head back to look up at the she-wolf's approach, exhaling a sigh of relief at the sight of her. "Move in with me." She blurts out. Not at all the way she'd meant for that to come out, but okay. She twists in her seat to stand and close the distance between them, looping her free arm around Mahri's waist before she can find something to say. "I mean, I know you're already staying here. I had all this planned out better, I swear." She presses a kiss against her cheek. "What I mean is, I like coming home to you and I like you coming home to me. So, if you want to, we'll fix it up some. Make it ours."

Mahri grins when Lita blurts out the unnecessary invitation, "I thought..." she didn't get to finish her thought though. Pushing away from the door, Mahri snakes an arm around Lita's waist, leaning into the offered kiss to her check. "Can I have a room for cannons? I honestly am no good at this. You decorate however you like it. I'll like it because you did it and because you're here." Turning, the she-wolf rests her hands on the vampire's hips, giving the curve a tap with her finger to make sure she had the woman's attention. "I like coming home to you, too. I like that you like when I come home," a wicked gleam lights up those silvery eyes. "I like that we can be apart and come back together and it's like we haven't been apart at all. Of course I'll move in and make this my home permanently, as long as you want me to."

Lita didn't realize she'd been nervous about what Mahri might say until she was saying yes. "Cannons?" She asks, her smile broadening. "Maybe once Tessa finds a place?" It seemed dangerous to put Tessa and cannons in the same room. More dangerous, at least. She leans in to kiss her properly, lingering close before tugging her inside from the doorway finally. "Oh no, I'm not suffering paint choices on my own." She sets the bottle down on an end table and reaches in one of the small paint cans on the floor near the wall to grasp the handle of a brush. "So what do you think? I think I hate this green number the least." She lifts the brush and flicks it purposefully in Mahri's direction, splattering paint towards her. "Oh, liking it better now." She decides.

Mahri chuckled but at least she's gonna get those cannons. Just makes sense living so close to water. "Fine, when Tessa finds her own place." Honestly, she also felt better having the changeling around to keep an eye on things (Lita) when she was gone. But then, that kiss, pushed other thoughts from her head except one, and that would be the vampire in her arms. Who'da thunk it, them - a wolf and a vampire- together. Lita had apparently. Taking a breath once the kiss is sadly over, Mahri wanders further into the villa at Lita's tugging. "I promise, I don't..." interrupted again, this time by a splatter of pastel green colored her usual black attire, hair and freckled her face. "Is that so?" She reaches for the blue, walks up to her lover and swipes the bristles across her cheek. "What's wrong with blue?"

Lita is already trying not to laugh too hard as she stares at the wolf dotted with the green paint. She turns her head when she sees the brush coming, just in time to keep paint out of her mouth but it is cold and wet as it smears across her cheek and ear and into her hair. She purses her lips playfully. "It just seems so cliché for a beach house, yah know?" She casually tosses the green brush down and reaches to pickup the can of off-white paint instead. "But I guess in that same thinking, green might be a little much for a wolf too, right? So maybe white instead?" She takes a step forward and dumps the entire can over Mahri's head, this time reaching to try and snag her waist and tug her close in case she tried to wriggle out of reach. Lita would probably end up splashed in white paint too, but it would be worth it.

Mahri sputters as paint turns ebon hair white and drips down into her face. Lita definitely is going to get covered because, even though they are of similar height and build, the wolf isn't weak. A low growl rumbles in her throat as she stoops down to sweep Lita into her arms, cradling her close so she gets dripped on as well in white. "Looks like we need a bath, don't you think?" Her grin is decidedly wolfish as she steps towards the door leading out rather than the bathing room. "A nice cool dip in the waves sounds just about right.." Her boots hit the wooden floor with rhythmic thunks. Never doubting her footing, Mahri doesn't hesitate to trot down the stairs and into the shifting sands. Lita might struggle and silver eyes might gleam feral in the moonlight when she looks down, her grip tightening around legs and ribs. Water splashes with each step, sea-spray splashing up to her knees and then higher the deeper she gets until Lita can feel the cool water against her back. "Ready?" Mahri won't throw Ace, no, too easy to lose her that way. Instead, black leathers and all, they're both dunked under water, the gentle current sweeping away paint in a swirl of white, dots of green and streaks of blue.

Lita might have underestimated Mahri. Or rather, saw this going differently in her head. In a whirlwind she's in the air, her feet dangling even as she kicks at nothing, scrambling uselessly. There's a string of unladylike curses being yelled that will probably be loud enough to reach Leo and Lora next door and make the Mouse blush, if they're home. "Ready!?" Lita parrots suddenly, twisting at the cold water. Vampire or not, she'd always preferred the warmth. Which is maybe why it hadn't surprised her much when she'd fallen for a wolf. "What do you mean--" the words are drowned out as Mahri dunks them both under water. For a moment, the world is a quiet blur of color exploding as she looks up at Mahri. And she already knows she'll paint this later. Even as she reaches for the wolf, to tug her closer beneath the waves and kiss her, cupping her cheek before they're both heading for the surface. "You're certifiable." She complains, wrapping her arms around Mahri's neck. "You know, maybe it's a good thing Leo is moving in nearby. You two can keep each other company when you sleep out here." She's teasing. Mostly.

Mahri stands, letting Lita's legs drop but keeping her close, for warmth of course. Once they broke the surface, and the kiss, Mahri pulls Lita in close to her side to walk back to the beach and the villa. "I probably am," she agrees to the complaint. "Might not be too bad, you know, spending the night with Leo on the beach, keeping each other warm," she's teasing. Mostly. "There's a mess in there," she nods towards the villa. "Save it for tomorrow or clean it up tonight?" The paint will be dry by morning, of course, and much harder to clean off the walls, floors and perhaps wicker furniture.

Lita follows Mahri along the beach, admittedly not really paying attention to the options of whether to clean tonight or tomorrow. There's a joke about Mahri and Leo and a doghouse in there somewhere but Lita manages not to say it, in case it might spoil the night entirely. Instead, she tugs Mahri to a stop on the back deck of the house and leans her hip against the railing. "Hey, listen, I don't think I really knew what it meant for you to go with me to ask Kasyr for help." It wasn't recent, exactly, but Tessa had brought it back up so Lita had been thinking about it. "You didn't really ask me questions, you just jumped in to help. I knew that for me that might eventually mean going against what Leo wanted, but I didn't know Tessa then. Didn't mean anything to me to cross her. But you did." She glances away from her then, out towards the ocean for a long minute. "I don't want to put you in a position where you feel like you're having to make those decisions. Truth is, I don't know if I'm good to you. Or good for you." She reaches for Mahri's hips suddenly, lifting her onto the railing as she nudges her way between her knees, looking up at her slightly as she nuzzles her jaw. "But I want to try and be."

Mahri glances down at Lita's hand in her own, stopping her from going inside to survey the damage they'd caused with paints then up with a brow quirked quizzically. The speech that comes next has those brows drawing together and a frown tugging the corners of her mouth down. Suddenly finding herself balanced on the railing, her legs coming around Lita while she nuzzles the wolf's jaw, Mahri buries her fingers in hair as dark as her own to tilt her lover's head back and shut her up with a kiss. After a very long few minutes of exploration, the she-wolf pulls away. "First, I wasn't letting you go alone even if I didn't understand entirely why. Second, I'd have protected Tessa from anything then and now, and I'll protect you the same. I make my own decisions and take the consequences if I need to." A peck on the nose, "You've good to and for me, Lita. You don't have to try. I'm worried I'm not good enough for you, but I try to be."

Lita inhales the scent of her with deep breaths. Beneath the salt of the ocean and residues of paint is the more earthy musk she's used to finding on her pillows in the wolf's absences. It makes her smile now as it does then. "You make the world quieter." She says softly. It was a good thing, at least to her. Even if she didn't always know how to explain it. It helped having something to focus on. Someone. She squeezes Mahri's hips gently before her arms snake around her waist in a loose hug. "You make me feel less broken." Or at least, like the pieces made more sense. "Just come home to me. Whatever else happens, whatever else there is, we'll figure it out." She slips her hands up the woman's back and beneath the shoulders of her coat, tugging it from her arms and tossing it over the railing. "However much I adore you though, you are not about to drip wet paint all over our bedroom. So take this mess off and you can jump in the bath while I clean up the living room."

Mahri shrugs out of the duster, sure that at some point Ace is going to steal it. "We don't break, Ace. We bend. If little pieces chip off, we're sharp and will cut anyone who rubs us wrong." Once Lita backs far enough away, Mahri slides off the banister to follow her into the house, clothing discarded along the way to leave an unmistakable trail. "I'll wait for you in the bath, then we are going to bed." If they sleep is an entirely different matter.

Lita doesn't need much more of an invitation, grinning as she enjoys the view of Mahri's nude form disappearing into the bedroom- their bedroom- and the washroom beyond. She makes some half hearted attempt to clean up most of the paint off the living room floor and furniture before deciding it's good enough. She grabs a bottle of rum from the kitchen then joins her lover in the bath. She's still fully clothed herself, but she doubts that'll last long.