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adelaidedrubman · 3 months

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[ CLEANSE ] our muses have sex in the bathtub from this prompt list + faith/jenna

notes: *scrambles in on the literal last day of pride month with the faithjen fic i swore i would post before its end* omg hiiiiiiiii hi hii. requested so long ago i won’t leave anyone on the hook for it even by my timeliness standards but. it’s here wordcount: 4k (almost) even warnings: NSFW, naturally. soapy boobs and thigh riding and all. bliss and cult stuff mentioned in passing. undertones of passive aggressiveness, less than healthy relationship dynamics, and emotional repression. local woman won’t just tell her girlfriend she smells like shit and she misses her but needs her alone time after work. faith smells like shit trutherism implied. (maybe to the point of unsanitary warning, but not really.) probably chemistry inaccuracies even with the intentional vagueness. prose over dialogue heavy. editing is not my strong suit, nor is conciseness

Jenna didn’t mind the smell of bliss, really.

At any stage in the production process.

A floral perfume heavied by its own decay, as the leaves dried. Fruit rotting and baking beneath unforgiving sunlight.

Antiseptic saturated air that stung Jenna’s nostrils with its chemical burn on the most gentle, tentative inhale as plant matter dissolved. A bite deepened by the dry, earthy crackle of burning leaves, the heavy stench of gas coughed and spit from bunsen burners ignited by unsure, newly trained hands.

A subtle brine beneath it all as the product was poured and stirred into vats of preservatives to be stowed away, like sea air that had soured.

She didn’t mind the smell. She really didn’t. If anything she liked it.

It meant things were rolling along successfully, after all. She particularly liked when she could pick up a note of each individual scent at once. Smoothly blending together, yet as distinct upon inspection as the stages of the process itself. A sign her lab was becoming a well oiled machine.

No, she didn’t mind the smell of bliss.

She did, just a bit, mind that it clung.

That it settled heavy into every fiber of her hair and clothing to follow her. That it managed to find her nose no matter how tightly sealed her mask, the creeping knowledge lurking in the back of her mind that it surely seeped into the soft pink tissue of her lungs as well.

She sighed at the thought, peeling off the last of her clothing and dropping it into the hamper — one built just for her, and bearing an uncanny resemblance to a biohazard container, with its plastic lining and sealed lid.

And it might as well be, she thought, soles of her feet adjusting to the lightly glossed grain of the hardwood as she slipped out of her shoes and stepped towards the bathtub.

Not that she minded that either.

The mere fact that she had a proper, safety proofed bin to dump her potentially contaminated clothing in was a stark improvement from her former research lab days. As was the fact her laundry would ultimately be left to someone else at the conclusion of her long work day, taken care of by one of the Project members assigned to do their part by washing and returning her clothes. (And far be it for her as a neutral observer to question the group’s organization of labor.)

Jenna rolled and cracked her neck as she tugged at elastic band and allowed her hair to fall freely, trailing fingers along ends dried and frayed from exposure to the harsh chemical smoke. Another reminder of the unavoidable damage Bliss production did to her body. (But what kind of scientist would she be, if she wasn’t willing to put her own body on the line as readily as anyone else’s?)

She brushed a hand through her curls, then brought the fingers to her nose, inhaling the lingering scent of latex and disinfectant. She glanced down at her palm, tracing eyes along the powdery residue settled in its creases.

Very much like her old research lab days, in the way it wore on her body.

But better in every other sense, really.

Better in that she was making real progress with her work, not jammed up with red tape. In that her journey from work to home was a short stroll down the hall of the Conversatory’s manor rather than just shy of an hour’s worth of bumper to bumper traffic to creep along all of ten miles. That her home had a deep clawfoot tub to soak the day away in, as opposed to the tiny shower stall of her old studio apartment.

Yes, superior by every measure she could conceive, she assured herself as she turned the knob of the faucet, mixing a blend of bath oils into the water as steam rose.

It was its own small bit of chemistry: mixing a concoction that would soothe and moisturize without settling into greasy film, building a sweet and potent perfume that didn’t too closely resemble the honeysuckle nectar of Bliss flowers.

And a particularly pleasant application of the science, warmth of the water melting the tension from her muscles as she slipped into the tub.

She sank down, dipped her head back to submerge, splashed water over her face before rising to sit again, droplets trickling down her back.

She rinsed, repeated the motion.

A creak of rusted hinges crying out in complaint cut through the soft sloshing of bath water to draw Jenna’s attention towards the opening door, joined by a gentle hum in a slow searching rise and fall, as if attempting to find harmony with the metallic screech.

Jenna tilted her head to better view her intruder, identity well known to her before her cheek ever pressed against cool porcelain.

Faith continued humming under her breath, smoothing out the tune with the settling of the door back into its frame at the gentle press of her fingertips, padding footsteps weaving left and right in something of a half dance on her path towards the tub.

It was Faith’s own way of slowly washing off the day, Jenna thought with an amused smile, the gradual easing out of the public persona into something more organic and relaxed — and no less captivating.

Faith’s song bubbled into a laugh (muted, not rising with the pitch it did around others) as she bent at the waist to hover over the tub. Jenna met her with a low, flat hum of her own and a wordless nod of acknowledgement.

Faith held the silence, reaching a hand out to drop dried flower petals to float atop the water. Not Bliss flowers — a collection from their private gardens. A smattering of primroses and poppies. She was well aware of Jenna’s stance on compartmentalizing. That Bliss, however pleasant, was business, the very business she was washing herself of at the end of her shift.

Basket emptied and set aside, Faith smoothed her skirt to prop herself seated at the edge of the tub. She leaned down to skim her fingers along the water — crowding Jenna’s senses with the syrupy perfume of Bliss that clung to her as she did. A more natural, softer version of the scent, lacking the sharp chemical notes, but familiar enough to wind the tension of work back into Jenna’s muscles nonetheless.

“You shouldn’t,” Jenna said plainly, gesturing with her eyes to the fingertips cutting ripples through bathwater. “Touch the water directly,” she clarified. “Because of the chemical residue, that is. Miniscule risk of harm, but not absent.”

Faith pulled back, blinked slowly. Then dropped her head with eyes closed, corners of her mouth stretching outward to allow a full and bright ringing laugh to spill from rosy lips.

A bit of residue, Jenna thought.

“From the Bliss, Jenna?”

A nod. “And every ingredient that goes into its production,” she answered, stretching her arms to rest along the sides of the tub. “It’s less dangerous than the sum of its parts, in ways.”

“There’s nothing I could possibly fear,” Faith dismissed, propping herself on her hands and lifting to spin on the porcelain ledge, draping her legs over the width of the tub with heels propped on the opposite side. “Not from the Bliss. Not from being near you.”

Jenna sighed, lifting her hand to trail damp, quickly pruning fingertips along the length of the woman’s leg in subtle acquiescence, feeling the small scrapes and caked dirt texturing the skin, signs she’d spent the day hard at work herself.

It was its own form of exposure risk Faith faced. Working with the end product. Being in the public eye. One Jenna couldn’t as easily mitigate with rigid safety protocol.

“It’s not about feeling fear or not,” Jenna countered, straightening her spine to sit more upright. Closer, she could smell past the perfume of Bliss to the subtle musk of sunbaked sweat. “It’s a… practical risk analysis. Strict probability.”

Faith giggled, softening again, but with a practiced dismissiveness all the same.

“Is that really all you can think about?” Faith questioned, now dipping a foot into the bathwater, flakes of dirt dissolving from the calloused skin to float alongside the petals as she rolled her ankle to stir. “Let’s be more practical by saving time and bathing together, then.”

“Practical doesn’t always mean efficient,” she answered plainly. “Again, the risk of —”

Her words were cut off by a sudden splash from Faith dropping her feet to the base of the tub, pulling her dress over her head in the same fluid motion.

Ah. So it was that kind of soft prodding suggestion, the kind Faith gave to signal a foregone conclusion — a particularly unavoidable one, it seemed, given she apparently hadn’t been wearing any underwear beneath her dress.

Jenna sighed.

“I don’t anticipate it will actually make things faster, either,” Jenna offered, affectionately placing hands at the backs of Faith’s legs to steady her nonetheless. “I think if anything it will lengthen the time we spend —”

“I hope it does,” Faith interrupted, settling atop Jenna’s lap. “I wish this moment could stretch on for eternity,” she said, wrapping arms around Jenna’s neck. “I wish it could last long enough to make up for every second that I’ve missed you.”

With that Faith leaned forward to close the remaining distance — a firm, steady pressure until she was seemingly satisfied Jenna’s lips would remain still, then melting into something more fluid and delicate.

“I have missed you, Jenna,” Faith parted ever so slightly to whisper against her lips. “I miss you, when we have to spend so much time apart.”

Well. As far as Jenna was concerned that was as good a qualitative factor for consideration as any, enough for her to stop bothering with explanations in favor of brushing aside the lightly misted curtain of blonde hair to kiss along Faith’s neck, subtle saltiness of dried and rewetted sweat clinging to her tongue.

But her nose nudging against golden locks also jostled loose a fresh perfume of honeysuckle, thickened by dewdrops of bathwater splashed onto her hair.

A pleasant smell, but not conducive to the head space Jenna sought — one temporarily, clinically insulated from the Bliss.

Jenna reached past Faith to lift the handheld showerhead from its brass mount, raking fingers along Faith’s scalp and her head to tilt back with a dreamily defeated sigh, “Well, we should at least be productive about it then, shouldn’t we?”

Faith’s fingers did not seem particularly set on productivity as they stirred to trace the curves of Jenna’s body, brushing featherlight along the dip of her collarbone and down to caress her chest, then seeming to disappear and reappear to tease along her thighs.

It would be better, to not have to rush it, Jenna thought to herself as she willed her own hands to work lathering shampoo into blonde hair rather than reach towards the places she truly longed to touch.

She didn’t like to rush anything with Faith.

She liked to sit with the sensations, savor each unique ache and dizzying jolt of pleasure she stirred inside her. She wished she could do so then and there, forget anything else to spend the rest of the evening basking in her.

But with the lurking nuisance of a rigid schedule tugging demandingly at her attention, Jenna reluctantly kept her attention focused on bundling a bar of soap into a washcloth to methodically slide along Faith’s body, despite the shiver fingers brushing far too lightly along her inner thigh brought in turn.

Until delicate phantom touch congealed into a more solid pressure, fingers involuntarily squeezing down on the nipple they’d been teasing as Faith tensed and shuddered with Jenna bringing the showerhead’s stream evenly between her legs.

“Mm,” Jenna intoned in something between an observant hum and an aroused moan. “Enjoying that, are we?”

Jenna paused just a single heartbeat longer to savor Faith’s shaky sigh of affirmation before angling the showerhead away to rinse the suds clinging to splayed legs instead, then shift upward to continue washing away sticky sweet Bliss to dilute in pooling water.

Faith shot her an indignant look that in turn quickly faded into pleading, slant of her brow rising to soften its furrow.

“I was enjoying it,” she answered, an extra breathy huff accompanying the soft ring of her words that Jenna knew meant angry warning no matter how sweetly it was dressed up, the sharp chemical bite beneath the perfume.

Yes, she recognized it just as easily as she recognized the punishing intent buried in the teasing slide of her fingers, staying spaced at such distance so as to avoid pressing against the places she ached most.

It was what first attracted Jenna to Faith, that too gentle conniving, as candied as it was calculated. It would be ungrateful, hypocritical to allow herself to feel frustration — to feel anything but admiration — for it now.

“Well, I certainly don’t intend to keep you from enjoying yourself,” Jenna replied calmly, bending forward to just barely grind herself against Faith’s teasing hand as she set aside the showerhead and squeezed a glob of shampoo into her palm. “But unfortunately I can’t be of much assistance at the moment.”

“But don’t you want to make me feel good?” Faith questioned, pressing a line of kisses to the ridge of Jenna’s jaw, threading the fingers of her free hand into Jenna’s hair. “Don’t you want to —”

“If I only had the time,” Jenna answered, briefly intertwining their fingers in the tangle of her curls as she worked in shampoo. “But I certainly won’t be offended if you use the opportunity to take care of yourself, while we’re together. I’d quite welcome it.”

“I want you to make me feel good,” Faith amended in sing-song, finding something between arguing with Jenna and expanding on her own statement as she worked her fingers faster, still without allowing them to make proper contact. “I want —”

“A compromise, then?” Jenna replied, sliding her right leg beneath Faith’s so that she straddled the left. “Go ahead,” she said with a flex of her hips to grind upward, coaxing Faith to meet the pace. “Use me as you’d like.”

Faith gave a pouty humph of complaint, breaking into a sharp intake of breath as Jenna placed the hand not busied with working in conditioner at Faith’s hip to guide her along the length of her thigh, angling her knee upward so that the blonde slid down her leg.

“J-Jenna,” she gasped, loosening the hand in Jenna’s hair to grasp the ledge of the tub, other hand flexing to curl just barely inside Jenna with the same tense of her body.

Jenna answered with no more than a vague hum, leaning back against cool porcelain to sturdy herself as Faith rocked against her, admiring how drawn out, soft strides slowly exploring the friction offered by Jenna’s thigh gradually grew shorter, more forceful and snappy.

The rate of the heavy breaths falling against the crook of Jenna’s neck followed a similar pattern, and she indulged herself a moment to slide a thumb along the gentle dip beneath Faith’s lips to feel the heat as she lifted the washcloth to her neck.

And blessedly, the strokes of Faith’s hand kept pace, giving Jenna just enough stimulation for pleasure to crest in the backdrop as she dutifully continued the task of washing herself.

A task that was no longer completely unassisted — Faith’s spare hand reached to join Jenna’s as she dragged her washcloth down to her chest, idly caressing and rolling a nipple beneath the now deeply shriveled pads of her fingers, just enough teasing pressure to make warmth flush along Jenna’s skin, mirrored in the hot pitch of Faith’s cheek pressed against hers.

The water itself felt set to boil — logically, it should have long past grown tepid during their luxuriating soak, but as it sloshed and licked its way up Jenna’s ribs from the force of Faith’s movement it brought nothing but delicious heat she so desperately wanted to sink down into.

“How much — mm, how much longer, Jenna?” Faith panted out in a plea as melodic as it was breathless, as impatient as it was gentle. “Before you can pay attention to me?”

“There’s never a moment you don’t hold my attention,” Jenna cooed with a kiss to Faith’s shoulder. “I promise it will be undivided very soon.”

She punctuated the statement by submerging her washcloth to brush between her thighs, taking the opportunity to cover Faith’s hand with her own, guiding it to quicken, increase force.

Jenna allowed herself one more impractical indulgence — turning and craning her neck to brush her lips against Faith’s as she hiked her free leg to prop atop the tub’s ledge.

And she admittedly drew out the task of running the washcloth along the length of her leg for longer than was strictly necessary, savoring the gentle vibration of Faith’s eager moans against her mouth, the way the angle drew her tighter around lithe fingers, made her cling to the pleasure from their strokes.

And the warmth of the water soothed away any tension threatening to settle into her muscles as they clenched harder, the delicate, fluid movement of Faith’s fingers quickly conducting the symphony towards an inevitable crescendo.

Still, it took more effort than it should have to lower her leg back into the water, pull away from their kiss.

“I only have one part left to wash, love,” Jenna whispered, ragged and low. “Do you need me to finish things up for you, so I can have my leg back?”

There was an ‘mmhm’ hummed against Jenna’s jaw as lips kissed up towards the apples of her cheeks.

“Go on and say it, then. Tell me, in that lovely voice of yours,” Jenna used her last bit of calm patience to press, pulling back to admire the sight of her lover — face flushed to match the primroses petals floating in the water and clinging to her skin, bare chest heaving. “Tell me what you’d like from me.”

“I want you to touch me,” she said in layers of dreamy sighs like spun sugar melting in the water. She angled her hips towards Jenna as if to direct her attention, gentle suggestion finally sharpening itself into a proper demand. “I want you to make me cum. Now.”

It was all Jenna needed to appease, bringing her thumb to Faith’s clit without delay and brush aside damp, wispy blonde curls to stroke.

The perfectly calculated angle at perfectly calculated pressure, the familiar contours of swollen flesh she used to gauge just how near she was to the edge, the expected burn in the expected places of her flexing arm as muscle memory did its work.

Down to a science.

Pink flush painting itself in brighter blotches on Faith’s face before crawling down to spread along the slight curve of her chest, the damp glisten of her brow that was fresh beading of sweat rather than bathwater, the telltale ripple of muscles at her middle in racing buildup as the jerks of her hips grew more erratic, the increase of the subtle drumming of her pulse in the the wrists resting atop Jenna’s collarbones as nails dug into her shoulder.

And there it was — a last gentle coaxing of Jenna’s exacting touch, all it took for her lover to find that long sought release with a surrendering toss back of her head and drawn out gasp, faint twitches of her finish barely detectable reverberating against Jenna’s leg as she rode it out.

And with the rush of the accomplishment, Jenna felt the need she’d allowed to fall to the backdrop quickly reassert itself, snatching the reins of her rational senses to drive her to grind determinedly against the hand between her legs, the fingers inside her slowly returning to life to resume a light, unsteady stroke, climax weakened tremble only increasing the thrill.

A thrill so strong that pushing herself to her own finish was just as easily done — a well-timed snap forward and downward drag of her hips, the last spark she needed to saturate every hungry nerve ending into overload.

Her ears burned and whooshed with the sudden rush of blood, so full with pressure it felt as if she’d dipped her head back to submerge in water. It faded, slowly, the heat in her chest flaring to a cool rush of relief as she came down.

As Jenna began grounding herself back into her body, she found the tightness had eased from her muscles entirely, tension worked away more thoroughly than the longest and most relaxing of soaks in a hot tub could ever grant her.

Which was quite fortuitous, because with no more internal heat to dominate her senses, she could feel just how much the bathwater had chilled since they had abandoned the pretense of cleaning up.

A final pleased sigh fell past Jenna’s lips as she shifted the leg Faith straddled to slide beneath her so that she rested between them, giving her final unwashed limb a quick, lazy wipe with the washcloth tightly wadded in her fist, followed by a hurried splash to rinse before she stretched the leg forward and used a toe to pull the plug from the drain.

Then one last strain of her limbs to reach for the towel hung to the side, pulling Faith in closer as she wrapped it around them.

“Consider me thoroughly corrected,” Jenna broke the comfortable silence to muse as she pulled slightly back, pressing her forehead against Faith’s. “You proved your point about the value of bathing together.”

She trailed her gaze down to the subtle, satisfied smile curving along Faith’s lips as she brought the towel to drape over the blonde’s head.

“Oxytocin, dopamine, norepinephrine,” Jenna recited as she rubbed terry cloth against blonde locks. “And a steady stream of serotonin in the comedown,” she mused, sitting back to blot gently at her own curls. “All chemicals released in the body from orgasm. And that greatly benefit the human brain — improving mood, cognition, and productivity. An efficient use of time, in the end, all things considered.”

“And is that all?” Faith pressed, the furrow of her brow in would-be hurt betrayed by the delighted twinkle in green eyes. “What about the closeness it brings us? The human connection?” she offered. “Don’t you think there’s something more, something deeper to it than just chemicals?”

“I failed to state a crucial axiom,” Jenna replied apologetically, lifting Faith’s hand from atop her shoulder and holding it between them. “There’s nothing deeper in the world to me.”

She brought the hand to her lips, pressing a kiss just above the knuckles.

“And I don’t think anyone’s ever managed to raise my oxytocin levels as effectively as you.”

Faith shook her head as if in tired resignation, but Jenna caught the soft upward curve at the corners of her mouth in understanding, vanishing from her field of vision in the same heartbeat as she pulled Jenna back into her, tangling their limbs together and reclining.

Such a brilliant woman, so perceptive. Such a privilege, to catch those glimpses of incisive, profound understanding she would carefully dress up as she moved through the day with eyes on her, pretense slowly washed away as the world faded to nothing but they two.

Enough of a marvel that she felt justified in allowing herself to linger, to let the minutes tick away lazing with Faith snuggled at her side.

Because there really was no one who raised her oxytocin levels quite as effectively.

No one she’d rather have her brain rewired to facilitate enduring social bonding with, no one she’d rather anoint with every indication of adoring commitment in present sociocultural practice.

“I love you too, Jenna.”

More than anything, there was no one she’d rather wash the day off with.

#nsft #oc: jenna swann #otp: a neurochemical con job #writies and wordies #fun director’s commentary fact: i kept reading over jenna’s third to last line like this is so cringe i have to find a way to cut it.#it reads way too ‘guy who hasn’t had a science class in a decade trying to write a science guy’ unnatural #then dr. house said a nearly identical line in the episode playing in the background and i said. well. i guess that’s not a crime #sorry real science guys #i gave up on the title. probably something inspired will occur to me as soon as i hit post #anyways happy pride

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