Fringe Kink Meme

jasika cannot remember anna ever having been overtly disapproving of anything; it's pretty much one of her core qualities: to be game, for anything.

but here, now, anna wrinkles her nose and shakes her head and laughs. it's not the raucous laugh jasika privately thinks of as deeply australian, and it's not the thoroughly-amused, more personal (yet universal) one.

instead, anna is taking a step back, then another. jasika takes a second look: at jeff gesticulating at her, smoke in hand.

oh.

jasika makes her way through what's not even a throng of production people to touch anna once, lightly on the wrist. hey, you ready?

anna smiles at her, and this is the real deal, again. yeah to jasika, sorry to jeff, and they scramble.

thanks, anna says, amused and off-handed, but of course nothing with anna is ever actually off-handed. she always makes you feel the emotion behind every word to you -- that it's you she cares about, you she pays attention to. easy, though, never forced.

this, jasika thinks, is why anna is an actress and not a politician. the facade has to be real enough. (jasika thinks of herself as a decent actress too, but she slots neatly into the category of actors more comfortable in front of a camera than to the side of it, or anywhere else.)

smoking used to be cool, anna muses, voice so soft that jasika has to lean in, a bit, and then hollywood said only villains did it, but now, backlash and forthlash and all, i feel silly for not liking it much.

jasika can't help it, she loves anna a little bit this very moment. she always likes her, of course, and appreciates her talent. but anna, for all her cheerful attitude, is not a pez dispenser variant; the moments where she talks about herself and thus lets you see more of her -- the actual her, or some semblance thereof -- are rare.

i get it, jasika says, and see, she's good too, because anna throws her a look from under long lashes that would make lesser men and women crumble (do something disintegrating, anyway).

you always do, jaz, anna says, and she's exhaling in a funny way. do you think there's smoke on my breath?

jasika blinks. she doesn't appreciate nicknames much, but she's used to them, and besides, she secretly likes the way anna pronounces her name: with the softest of "z" sounds.

i doubt it; not from the foot or so of distance. jasika stops, and this time it's natural to hold anna's wrist, very gently, to stop her in her tracks. why?

close-up scenes coming up, anna says, where i wouldn't want to make anyone subject me to what i myself don't like.

jasika thinks, very distinctly, that this is a total cliché and totally can't be what anna is angling for, here out at the perimeter, behind the trailers, without anyone else around. come here, let me see. or smell, maybe.

anna smiles, delighted and innocent and maybe a bit too much so. her breath is warm on jasika's face, perfectly pleasant; jasika inhales just as slowly. she shouldn't be savoring it, and she's not -- not deep down where it counts, where the space in her heart is filled already, has been filled for a while.

but this is anna torv, whose skin is warm under the fingers of jasika's hand still encircling her wrist, and whose stunning face is very close. close enough for jasika to stare at the starburst of colors in anna's eyes, green and gold and gray until jasika wonders if there's an astronomy award to be gotten, somewhere.

thanks, anna whispers, and jasika startles, just a little. for being you. the corner of anna's mouth lifts in ways jasika hasn't seen before (but would not mind seeing again).

jasika smiles back at her and turns resolutely, walking back to prepare for her own scene. she loves her job, and she loves he people she works with. but if anna's approval is just as the world should be, why does she still feel this is not quite the case?