open.

[tender]

WHO: Derrica + OTA
WHAT: Office Hours
WHEN: Guardian
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Drop in, door's open.

There is nothing technically wrong with the Project Haven conference room and office. They are orderly, without any tangible sign of the intentions of their former owner.

Still, Derrica has thrown open the single window in the office wide in spite of the cold. There is a small crate just beside the doorway between office and conference room, where Derrica has been pitching anything she finds questionable. (Chantry texts to be relocated to records or the chapel, small items that might be personal affects, or are simply not to her taste.) She's left the doors open behind her, the one leading into the conference room, the one leading into the corridor, and the one leading into the Forces and Diplomacy workspaces as well, as if to promote circulation to the highest degree possible.

What comes after the cleaning is something Derrica is still working out.

She's never had an office. She's yet to even sit down at her allotted desk in the Forces workroom. But here she is, and she make something of the space. It's expected, she's certain.

Her hands are full of Chantry hymnals when the sound of footsteps pulls her attention from them.

"Watch out for the box," is her first, immediate word of caution. It's only partly blocking the doorway, but just enough to be a hazard to the unsuspecting.

Welcome to Project Haven. Don't mind the momentary clutter.

Comments

[tender]

It's not unwelcome. Or it doesn't feel unwelcome in the span of moments where his mouth is set to hers and their fingers lace together. They are alone, with only an open door behind him and no one following after.

But there is some small, unmistakable flicker of tension or uncertainty or hesitation (or all three at once) over it that lives in the moment where he reels her close and when he lifts away. Her eyes search his face briefly, even as her expression settles into a smile.

"It's a tower," she teases. "They're all ocean facing."

And depending on her arm, how far a hymnal might be thrown—

"Does it suit me?" is a teasing question too, even if there is some genuine insecurity underlying it. Derrica had never aspired to high office, and it is not entirely comfortable to have ascended to one.

[charmoffensive]

The flicker may be unmistakably one of those three things, or all of them, but there's a second spent (and wasted) on trying to determine which one before Derrica is already teasing him. It's a lane change that Loxley follows, straightening his posture at her question and rocking back a step ostensibly to look at her, and the office around.

"Well, let me see," he says, and gestures for the desk, other hand lifting hers to invite her to go over to it. "So I might get a full picture."

[tender]

Her hands tighten in his before she lets go, retreating back to the desk to lean back against it.

"I've never had a desk before," says Derrica, technical owner of a desk in the Forces workroom several feet away. "I've been trying to think of a good use for it."

Other than it's intended use, which presumes Derrica will have office hours and paperwork of her own and—

And that's all things to worry about later. Tonight. Tomorrow. Perhaps she will write a letter to Ilias about it. In the moment, she beckons to Loxley. Enough scrutiny from a distance.

[charmoffensive]

The scrutiny is very pantomime, a tip to his head to look her over carefully, the picture she makes in this stuffy office, its cold stone walls. A flicker of a smile betrays him when she beckons him, and Loxley goes, moving in close enough that he can lean with his hands against the edge of the desk on either side of her.

"Sturdy," he notes, because naturally. "Sturdy desk, dusty tomes, paperwork. You should get a plant, at least. Something pretty. I should have gotten you a plant," occurs to him much too late, brow furrowing, non-serious.

[tender]

Perhaps they should have closed the door.

A passing thought, as Loxley's hands bracket her body. She reaches in kind, hooks fingers into either side of his tunic, press her knuckles against his sides as she tips her face up to him.

"You brought me something better."

Himself. A welcome sight, amid the detritus of Brother Gideon and the jittery nerves of such an entirely new position, that light prickle of uncertainty between them aside. He is a comfort. The nearness of him is a comfort.

"There's going to be a mural," she tells him. "And drapes."

[charmoffensive]

"Ah, leaving your mark on the place," Loxley says, perhaps forgetful about the door, perhaps simply negligent. He seems at ease, either way. "I like it."

His posture shifts and turns a little so he is leaning one-handed into her space, picking his other hand up to extremely pointlessly moving a flyaway lock of her hair, touching just to touch. "I almost took a job up here, you know," he says, hand dropping. "Perhaps if it was you giving the pitch, I'd have run with it."

Not that Ilias was a bad looking man, but, you know.

[tender]

"I need an assistant," Derrica teases. "If you're still hearing pitches."

Derrica wouldn't know what to do with an assistant. Loxley is absolutely not made to sit behind a desk. But it's amusing to think about.

As Loxley's hand drops, Derrica releases her grip at his waist to catch and hold, lace their fingers together. She takes a moment, weighing up the question before asking, "Do you ever think you might like to do something like that?"

Not assist. Derrica is thinking of how he'd confided in her before, his ideas for Rifters. She is thinking of how she might be helpful to him in that regard, now that she's here.