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| Details |
| Author: | Aly |
| Summary: | Peril Farrens goes on a date. But not the kind of date he expected. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
It was a stormy Tuesday morning. Three in the morning, to be precise, an hour which is exceedingly difficult to wake up at. That’s why Peril Farrens, in his infinite and blessed wisdom, simply didn’t sleep. Why fight the morning grogginess, when he could spend the night enjoying coffee and good books?
The weather really was atrocious, though. Peril peered out the window of his room as he pulled on his boots. Lightning flashed him a dare. It didn’t matter. This Tuesday morning was special. He had a date with a local fisherman who had promised to take him on his boat.
So downstairs he went, reaching for his coat on the rack, only to belatedly realize he’d lent it to Penny Hartrim after spitting coffee down the front of her. He remembered that white shirt, and the hint of what lie beneath…
Pain bit into his thigh as he collided with the corner of his desk.
“Auh…” Peril gasped, catching himself on it. “Well… well played, mister desk. I deserved that.” He took a minute to compose himself and let the throbbing die down. From the desk! The throbbing from the desk! There was absolutely no throbbing of other varieties going on. He pulled his hat down to further cover his face, even though there was no one else to see the red of his cheeks.
“I uh, I don’t need a coat,” Peril told the empty room, grabbing his fishing rod from a stand behind his desk. “A little rain never hurt anyone.”
A boom of thunder made him flinch.
“Right. So I suppose I’ll just… be going, then.”
Fingers tight around the fishing rod, Peril proceeded to, then opened, the front door. The wind roared, spraying him with a barrage of droplets and unseating his hat from his head. It flew backwards into the room, and Peril raced to catch it.
“Now you’re being cruel,” he informed the weather, placing his hat securely over his receding hairline and holding it there as he once again made for the exit. The wind fought him every step.
By the time Peril arrived at the harbor he was soaked through, the chattering of his teeth competing with the howling wind and booming thunder. Only one person was as brave or foolish as he was, standing in a huddled mass at the edge of the dock, and as Peril drew closer, they started to run towards him.
“Oh, Mr. Peril!” cried a familiar voice. “I knew you’d come! You brave, wonderful man!”
It was Penny Hartrim. For some reason. She didn’t slow as she got close, throwing herself straight at him and capturing him securely in her arms. She was wearing his coat wrapped around her, and a tight tan skirt beneath that, followed by shoes that looked impossible to walk in, especially in this weather. Her hair, soaked, was done up in a bun, revealing two small gold hoop earrings, one in each ear.
“Penny?” he asked, incredulous. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you,” Penny said, pulling back to hold him by the shoulders. Those shoes brought her to Peril’s height. “I wanted to return your coat, and I just knew you would come out even in this weather!”
“Huh,” Peril said, his mind reeling — and not the kind he wanted it to be doing. He glanced at his fishing pole.
“Here, you must be freezing.” Penny started to remove the coat, revealing another white shirt. In the rain. About to be soaked. Already he could tell that this shirt fit tighter on her, clinging to her body as she —
Peril grabbed the coat and pulled it closed back around her. “There’s uh. No need for that,” he said. “The weather is… weathering.” It was hard to focus, the way his heart was beating, as if he’d just run all the way here.
“Oh,” said Penny. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to fall ill.”
Lightning flashed against the backdrop of the stormy sea, causing Peril to jump. “I-I’m fine, really,” he stammered. “Where do you live? I could… walk you home?”
Penny smiled brightly, despite the rain sliding down her face. “I live in the Cathedral District, but I’m not really staying there right now. I’m out in Elwynn, currently, and it’s quite a ride.”
Peril frowned. “Penny, it’s three in the morning, you could get mugged — or worse! You could…” he wiped a hand across his forehead, surprised by the words coming out of his mouth. “Come to my office? I live there. You could dry off, get warm, and wait for the storm to pass… with… me?”
“And then we can continue our date! Oh, Mr. Peril, how brilliant you are!” Penny grabbed his hand, towing him back through wind and rain, towards the Mage Quarter.
“Date…?” Peril followed along, dazed.
And so they arrived, back in the quiet office of the Azerothian Interest, the two of them together, soaked through.
Peril put away his fishing pole, glancing around the room. The logical next-step would be… He locked on to the fireplace, and it hit him. Oh, no. Somehow, he hadn’t thought this through.
And then, she said it. “We should get out of our wet clothes.”
“Uh…” He turned around to find Penny Hartrim closing on him, her fingers reaching for the buttons of his vest. “The coat!” he blurted. “I can… take the coat, and hang it up.”
She paused a mere step from him and smiled, turning so he could pull the coat from her. “Thank you, Mr. Peril. You’re very kind.”
Whew. Crisis averted. As he slid the coat from her shoulders, he thought he saw a glint of something gold bouncing and flickering towards the floor. He didn’t have time to worry about it.
“Now, uh, I have a bath upstairs,” he said, hanging the coat on the rack to dry. “You could get warmed up in there while I dry your clothes.”
Penny tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, gazing at him through her lashes, a shy smile on her face. “What shall I wear when I emerge?” she asked.
Peril stared at her, suddenly struck by the thought of Penny wearing nothing but a towel, her long, slender legs flush from the heat of the bath, and her chest —
“Mr. Peril?” Penny took a step closer, jolting him back to reality.
“A-ah, right, well, hopefully your clothes will by dry by then, but if not, I have a spare shirt you could…” No. Out of the question. Seeing Penny in one of his shirts would be far too dangerous. Her clothes would have to be dry by then. He would make them dry.
He led her upstairs, past his messy desk and chaotic bed, and to a tiny bathroom tucked into the wall. After getting the water heated and the tub filling, he picked out a shirt — just in case.
“I’ll hand my clothes out to you, okay?” Penny called from around the mostly-closed door.
Peril took a deep breath. They were just clothes. As long as he didn’t think too hard about where they came from, and whose skin they had just been resting on…
The dreaded white shirt came first. It was wet from her hair and the brief moment when she had exposed it to the weather, but not as wet as it could have been. Still, it would need to be dried. Next came the skirt, completely drenched. It clung to him as he handled it, and Peril couldn’t help but make a face. Finally, in a combination that he surely should have expected, yet somehow managed to overlook, Penny handed him her bra and panties.
The second Peril realized what he was holding, he dropped them. They landed on the floor in the doorway, between his room and the bathroom.
“Mr. Peril?” Penny asked.
“Sorry!” Peril said quickly. “I didn’t have quite a hold on the… on those.”
He bent to retrieve them, but Penny had the same idea. Their hands touched. Peril leapt back, startled. Her hand! Her naked hand! In his rush to get away, he all but tripped backwards over his desk chair, falling over it onto the floor on the other side.
Penny peered out at him. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Only her head and one shoulder was visible, but Peril knew that on the other side of that door, Penny was…
“Yes, I am. It’s a bit tight in here,” Peril said, laughing nervously as he sat up. “You can just throw those onto my bed and I’ll get them.”
His head hurt. So did his back and shoulders. But it was hard to feel the pain over the racing of his heart. It had felt so different with the succubus. So natural. So right. This — whatever this was — felt awful. The longer Penny stayed in his home, the greater the chance he would do something disgraceful, like he always did.
So when Penny at last closed the door and slipped into the bath, Peril cleared off his desk, laid out her clothes on it —yes, even those — and reached for a grimoire.
“I can do this,” he whispered. “It’s just a little fel fire…”
He murmured the words, and the fire sprung to his call, eager and hungry, dancing and licking, but Peril held it contained. All he had to do was hold it there, then the clothes would be dry, and the weather would clear, and Penny — started humming from inside the bathroom. Did Penny sing in the bath? He imagined her soaking, steam rising up around her as she ran her fingers along her smooth, bare skin…
Peril took a breath to compose himself, and smelled something burning. The clothes. The clothes were burning. He yanked his hand away and snapped shut the grimoire, but it was too late. In a burst of hungry green fire, Penny’s clothes were reduced to ash.
Peril stared at his desk. Then looked under his desk, as if maybe they’d vanished and reappeared somewhere else. They hadn’t. He stumbled back to his bed and sat down heavily. There’d be no hiding this.
“Uh, Penny,” he called towards the bathroom.
“Yes, Mr. Peril?” Penny asked, her voice muffled by the door.
“I’m not really sure how to tell you this, so I guess I’ll just say it,” Peril said. “I may have… burned up your clothes.”
Silence.
Then, “Could you maybe repeat that?”
“I may have — I definitely burned up your clothes,” Peril repeated. “I can reimburse you — and I will, just. You might have to wear more than my shirt.”
“You burned… all of them?” Penny sounded surprised. Of course she did, it was a surprising thing to hear.
“Yes, I… believe it was all of them,” Peril said awkwardly.
There was a smothered sound from inside the bathroom. She was crying. She was absolutely crying.
“Penny,” Peril began, his voice pleading. “I’m so —”
“Will you have the other clothes ready for when I come out?” Penny asked. Wow. That was a fast recovery.
“Yes. Yes, of course, I’ll gather them now.”
Peril rifled through his dresser, picking out his tightest pants and his smallest belt, and… oh no. Panties. Maybe it would be okay without. His clothes would never stay put on such a slender body. When he had them all gathered, he slid them through the door for Penny, and sat back on his bed to wait.
Penny emerged when she was finished bathing, wearing his brown shirt tucked into his brown pants, secured as tightly as possible with his belt. The pants were a little long, but with those shoes of hers, it would probably be alright. Her wet hair was down around her shoulders now, and she smiled at him, doing a little turn on her way out of the bathroom.
“How do I look?” she asked.
“Beauti —” the word was halfway out of Peril’s mouth before he caught it. No, no. That would give her the wrong idea. They were business partners who weren’t quite in business yet. But, truth be told, Penny looked better in those clothes than he did. “You look like an eager young reporter,” he said instead.
Penny giggled, then looked more closely at him. “Mr. Peril, you didn’t change!”
She was right. Peril’s vest, and the shirt beneath still clung to him, cold and damp, and his pants were notably spongy. He had been so worried about Penny’s clothes, that he’d neglected his own.
“It’s only a little water,” Peril said, glancing down at himself. It was getting uncomfortable, though. “I can dry by the fireplace.”
“Nonsense! You’ll fall ill and then I’ll… get to take care of you…” Penny shook her head, blushing. “Oh, Mr. Peril, I know danger is your first name, but that’s a bit too reckless. Here, let me help you.”
She knelt beside the bed, and, one by one, undid the buttons of his vest. Peril sat frozen, barely daring to breathe, as if moving would startle her away. Every time her fingers brushed his chest, his heart pounded harder, as if trying to burst out to meet her. He was certain she could feel it.
“I… should probably take a bath, myself,” Peril said as she reached the last button. He needed time. Time to think, to stall until the storm ended and Penny could go home.
Penny’s hand came to rest in the middle of his chest; she could definitely feel it now. Peril reached up and lowered the brim of his hat to cover his reddening cheeks.
At first he wasn’t sure she would let him go, but after a quiet moment, she said, “I think you should, too. I’ll try not to burn your clothes up while you’re gone.”
He flinched a little. She was still mad.
He cleared his throat. “Right. Thank you. Sorry,” he said, before collecting even more fresh clothes and scurrying into the bathroom.
After stripping off his wet clothes (minus the hat) and sinking into the bathtub, Peril let out a small sigh of relief, realizing just how tense he had been since he encountered Penny. The water was soothing, and after washing what hair he had, he replaced his wet hat with a fresh one that hung on a hook by the tub and closed his eyes to relax.
Peril awoke to a bed of cold water and a soft tap on the door.
“Mr. Peril?” said Penny, her voice filled with concern. “Are you okay? It’s been a long time.”
Peril gripped the edge of the tub and pulled himself up straighter, an embarrassed smile on his face. She couldn’t see it. “Yeah,” he called back. “Yeah, I’m okay. I think I must have fallen asleep.”
“What? That’s so dangerous!”
Peril did know a spell for water breathing, but he would still have to be awake to keep track of its duration. He could hear her hand press against the other side of the door.
“Yeah, I suppose it is,” he said. Her concern for him caused his heart to flutter; he could probably heat the water up with his body temperature. “Sorry, Penny, if I worried you. I’ll be out in a moment.”
And so he was, dressed in a fresh green shirt and vest, with lighter brown pants. Penny was sitting on his bed, still wearing his clothes, her hair a little dryer and done up again in a loose bun.
“The storm is over,” she said, smiling up at him. She sounded almost disappointed, and there was a slight slump to her shoulders.
Peril glanced out the window, and, sure enough, he could see the streaks of dawn through the clouds, beginning to light the sky. “So it is,” he said. Had he really slept that long?
“I should probably get home now,” Penny said, standing up. “And you should get some real and proper sleep. Thank you for letting me stay here with you during the storm, and for letting me use the bath.”
“Uh… no problem, except… Sorry again, about your clothes,” Peril said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I really will reimburse you.”
Penny’s smile brightened, for some reason. “Maybe you could help me pick out some new ones,” she said, turning and heading for the stairs.
Nervousness began to claw through Peril’s insides. What did he know about picking a girl’s clothes? But he owed her that much, at least. “Of course,” he said. “Yeah. You can write me and we’ll work out a time.”
“Can I really?” Penny stopped at the bottom of the stairs to face him again. “We could be like pen-pals! Oh, I do adore your writing.”
Peril pulled the brim of his hat down to hide his blushing face in its shadow. “Well, thank you, Penny, that’s very sweet of you to say.”
As he arrived at the bottom of the stairs and started walking with her to the door, a flash of gold caught his attention and he knelt to investigate. It was a mid-sized gold hoop, not unlike the ones he had seen in her ears.
Penny opened the door. “Goodbye Mr. —”
“Penny, wait!” Peril cried, holding the earring up. “Is this —”
When Penny turned around and saw him, her eyes grew wide and her hands flew to her face. “Oh —! Oh, Mr. Peril, yes! YES!” She squealed in delight and ran to him. It must have been an important earring.
She pulled him to his feet, only to throw herself into his arms, jumping up and down excitedly before releasing him again. “Put it on, put it on!” she cried, offering her left hand and pointing to her ring finger.
“Um, okay,” Peril said. Kind of a weird thing to do with an earring, but maybe it was where she stored them when she couldn’t see to put them in properly?
He slid the earring onto her finger — it did fit, somehow — and Penny hugged him again.
“I am going to tell everyone!” she cried, sprinting for the door. “You’ll have to ask my father, of course, and get his permission, but you’re oh-so-clever, I’m sure you’ll do great. Wow, I am so excited!”
With another squeal, Penny left the office, closing the door behind her.
Peril stood dumbfounded, staring at the door she had whirlwinded through, trying to figure out what, exactly, had just happened. He worked through it. Found an earring. Knelt down to pick it up. Held it up to Penny…
Wait.
Down on one knee? Check.
Gold, circular, ring-like object? Check.
Sliding said gold, circular, ring-like object onto wedding ring finger? Also check.
Asking her father?
Peril paled. “Welp,” he said, fingering the brim of his hat. “Maybe I can sleep this off.”
He turned towards the stairs to head back to his room, faintly registering that for some reason, she had said yes.