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Jemma and Skye are at a corner booth, sharing a bottle of O+ and idly playing footsie, when Jemma feels a tap on her shoulder. She whirls around, startled and therefore on the defensive for no real reason, but her shock turns into a giant grin when she sees who it is and in a split second she’s up and throwing arms around the newcomer’s neck.
“Nice to see you, too,” said newcomer – a stunning redheaded woman, all black leather and red lipstick, clearly one of their kind – drawls.
“Skye,” Jemma exclaims, breaking out of the hug and scooting back into the booth, waving for her friend to join them. “Skye, this is Natasha, she’s…” A little shrug. There’s not really one good way to explain it, but Skye figures that means that among other things, they definitely hooked up before. She isn’t jealous, really she’s not (yes, this Natasha is gorgeous and clearly they get along, but Skye knows that Jemma’s her girl now and besides that it looks like it was probably just friend-sex from the way they’re both acting) but it seems important to notice.
She still pulls Jemma into her lap once she’s in the booth, though. A little bit of possessiveness is to be expected.
Natasha is looking at Skye all quizzically, though, eyebrow raised and those full red lips pressed together, and after a moment Skye just leans her head against Jemma’s shoulder and asks, not wholly without suspicion, “Have we met?”
“No,” Natasha says, “but if you’re who I think you are, I knew your Maker.”
Skye stiffens and Jemma says, almost in apology, “Natasha has a way of knowing everyone.”
“Convenient,” Skye says, and after pressing a kiss to Jemma’s throat she asks, “Grant Ward?”
“That’s the guy,” Natasha agrees. “I heard what happened. Good for you.”
Skye shrugs, somewhere between sheepish and startled. “Thanks, I guess,” she mumbles. “It wasn’t really anything big, it just had to be done.”
“I’m not going to argue that,” Natasha smirks. “I got close to offing him myself once or twice. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t big. You know how rare it is for someone to do what you did?”
“I guess,” Skye repeats. It’s clear she’s feeling embarrassed at this point, or possibly just straight-up uncomfortable, so that means it’s time to change the subject with a bright, just slightly fake grin. “How do you two know each other?”
“Also mutual acquaintances,” Natasha says. “I don’t always stay in the same place long, but it’s not like ours is a very big community.” She folds her hands on the table, stares the younger girls down in a way that’s more businesslike than anything else. “Long story short, the last time I was here was when this one and her brother were new to the area, and she clearly needed some looking after that he couldn’t provide. I’m sure you understand that it’s hard to resist that.”
She’s not put out by it, but still Jemma butts in, “I’m not that hopeless, am I?”
Skye and Natasha both laugh. “Of course not, honey,” Skye says. “You’re a little bit of a stray kitten at times, but in a sweet way.”
Jemma makes a face. “You’re not helping,” she mutters, though she’s perfectly aware that she’s hardly threatening.
“How’s this,” Skye says. “You’re very fierce and you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, but you’re also a very nice girl and I love that about you.” She looks at Natasha for support.
“And the fact that you’re a very nice girl means that those of us with protective instincts tend to take that on,” Natasha adds helpfully.
“Fine,” Jemma huffs, tugging on her top to pull her neckline down a little bit (her way of saying that she is too a big girl) and wiggling in Skye’s lap a bit, which just makes Skye tighten her hold on her and kiss her neck. To Natasha she says, “Skye’s taken over where you left off, rather. With the lessons and the… well.”
“I figured as much,” Natasha replies with a little chuckle. “You wear pseudo-domestic bliss well, mladshaya sestra.”
They stay at the bar for a while that night, keeping Natasha company until her actual company (both Skye and Jemma recognize Maria vaguely, they’ve seen her around – since theirs is a small community – but never spoken to her before) arrives and then idling around on a kinda sorta double date awhile after that. But when Jemma’s starting to look like she’s had her fill of social interaction, when she’s gone from nervous new people chatter to wide-eyed silence, Skye smiles and makes some excuse for them so they can beg off (which the other women both understand to one degree or another).
“Leo?” Jemma calls out when they get back to the house (they almost always go back to Jemma’s, and though Skye never says so it’s because her own place doesn’t feel nearly so much like home). “You here?”
“There’s a note on the fridge,” Skye says, sounding amused because of course there’s a note on the fridge, Jemma and Leo are about the squarest vampires she’s ever known and it’s adorable.
Jemma dashes in, looking more curious than particularly worried, and lets her eyes skim over the paper. “I wonder who he’s out with,” she murmurs upon reading that her brother is, in fact, somewhere not here and assuming (correctly) that he wouldn’t of his own volition.
“My bet?” Skye says, wrapping her arms around Jemma’s waist from behind her. “That cute boy we met when we dragged him to that concert.”
“Antoine?” Jemma echoes, shrugging. “You think?”
“C’mon, you didn’t see that?” Skye asks. “There was serious flirting going on. It was sweet.” Jemma wrinkles her nose, which means that Skye has to ask, “Is that because you really didn’t notice or because you don’t approve?”
“I approve, believe me,” Jemma says. “I’m glad he’s found someone outside of us that he can actually stand to spend time with, if that’s the case. I just… flirting?”
“Yeah,” Skye retorts, rolling her eyes playfully. “You know, the thing you’re horrible at but I love you anyway?”
“I suppose,” Jemma mumbles, going all shy. “I think part of being horrible at it is that I genuinely don’t notice it.”
“Fair enough,” Skye shrugs. “So it looks like for a while we’ve got the place to ourselves.”
“Looks like,” Jemma replies, turning for a kiss like usually they save for behind closed and locked doors.
They’re making out, pants off/shirts still on, idly feeling each other up, when Skye’s lingering self-consciousness finally gets the better of her and she asks, “So, you and Natasha, huh?”
“Strange time to ask it,” Jemma points out with a little smirk, pulling back and settling with her head against Skye’s stomach, “but yes. Once upon a time, we… did things. You know.”
Not you know that we did, but you know what things. Or anyway that’s the logical assumption. “Because that’s what big sisters do?” Skye prompts.
“Sort of,” Jemma says. “She’s not technically that, of course, but… well. Leo’s a darling, you know that, but he was shook up enough himself after our Maker’s… passing. He didn’t exactly have the wherewithal to take care of a lot of things, so Tasha was able to do for a couple of weeks.”
“And one of those things was sex,” Skye presses. For some reason she can’t let this go, quite.
“Right,” Jemma says. “Promise you won’t be mad?”
“Of course,” Skye exclaims, almost laughing. “I’m not mad, why would I be mad? I’m just trying to put together the mystery that is Jemma Simmons.”
“I lied to you before, kind of,” Jemma explains, rushing the words. “When you asked me if Leo and I ever… well, we didn’t, we haven’t, but we very nearly did once. Right after Frank… we, we kissed, we even made out a bit.”
This isn’t quite what Skye was expecting, but also she totally sort of expected it. “But you didn’t go all the way,” she prompts, exaggerating the words.
“Huh-uh,” Jemma says. “The reasoning I gave before is true, he’s like a biological brother to me. It was just too weird. We were alone and confused and it seemed like the thing to do at the time but once we tried, we just… couldn’t.”
She looks so alarmed by this confession that Skye leans to kiss the top of her head. “I promise I’m not mad,” she says. “I’m glad you told me, and I’m especially glad that it was so weird for you two, because otherwise I’d have to share you, and I don’t really like sharing.”
“I don’t either,” Jemma about purrs, nuzzling into Skye.
“But I’m also glad you have him,” Skye continues. “And Natasha. I’m glad that, you know. They were able to help you, I don’t know, pick up the pieces after… whatever.”
Jemma nods, chews on her lip a while. “When Tasha said – what did she mean, ‘good for you’ about your Maker?” she asks in a whisper, like she’s embarrassed but she suddenly can’t manage to stop herself saying it.
Skye sighs. “I think one of my favorite things about you is that when we met you didn’t look at me strange because you knew what happened,” she says. “Because you didn’t know.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Jemma rushes to say. “I just… wondered.”
“It’s fine, Jem,” Skye assures, pressing a kiss to the top of Jemma’s head. “It’s just this whole big stupid thing that people make a way bigger deal out of than they need to, but it’s gonna come out eventually and I’d rather tell you than have you hear it from someone else, y’know?”
“I know,” Jemma agrees.
“Your Maker was like a regular dad to you guys, right?” Skye asks. “All… paternal and shit.”
“And shit, yes,” Jemma giggles. “I honestly don’t think he’d have turned either of us if it hadn’t been that or let us die.”
“It was the same for both of you, yeah?” Skye asks, momentarily derailed.
“Yeah,” Jemma agrees. “Leo a couple years before me, he’d been attacked outside the lab as a sort of protest against the fact that Frank was a vampire who refused to act like a proper vampire or some such and Frank found him before it was too late, thank goodness.”
“And then you and the accident,” Skye murmurs. She knows Jemma doesn’t like talking about it – knows that accident isn’t even the right word for contracting a rapidly advancing virus that had no business being in a vampire sciences laboratory but there it was anyway – but she can’t help but confirm.
“Yeah,” Jemma repeats. “For all the things that Frank didn’t teach me before he… well, he thought he was looking out for me, for us. Even when were just his human lab assistants. He was trying to do what he thought was right.”
“Well, that was the opposite of true with my Maker,” Skye says. “I mean, I was just a dumbass kid living in my van, flirting with danger ‘cause it seemed like the thing to do, and after vampires came out they were the most dangerous thing I could think of, you know?” She waits for Jemma to at least nod along before she continues. “Anyway, Grant took a shine to me, to put it mildly, and it got to the point where it was keep on with my half-assed human existence or take a chance on something more.”
“So you let him turn you,” Jemma prompts, because she can’t not.
“I did,” Skye agrees. “And for a while it was okay. I mean, I definitely wasn’t as into him as he was into me, but he wasn’t a horrible Maker. He made sure I knew what I was doing, he taught me what I needed to know. Fighting and feeding and all that shit.”
“Did you guys…”
“Fuck?” Skye wrinkles her nose. “A couple of times. He was a lousy lay, honestly, but I’d had worse. But then it got… weird.”
“Weird how? If you wanna…”
“I need to,” Skye says. “It’s fine. Don’t worry. See, Grant’s Maker was still alive, and after a while we took off to find him, be one big happy family or whatever, only John was… he wasn’t a well man. Mentally speaking. One of those anti-mainstreamers, you know? And he was in a nest.”
“A nest,” Jemma repeats. “Oh, no.”
“Yeah. Live together, feed together, feed on each other a little too much,” Skye sighs. “The idea that it tends to make with the crazy definitely applied here. John was crazy. They had a few others. Jasper, Brock – there was only one chick, Raina, and she was really crazy. All this talk about being special, this obsession with, like, fairies and magic and weird things like that. And it became clear after a couple weeks there that Grant was just as nuts, only he had been better at hiding it. He was grooming me to be the Bonnie to his vampire Clyde, except he thought we were actually gonna get away with it.”
“Oh, Skye,” Jemma murmurs, snuggling closer.
“So he – shit, they actually planned a heist, kinda?” Skye shakes her head, apparently still in disbelief. “The plan was to stroll into a shopping center, lock the humans in, feast and take prisoners. Fucked up shit like that. Since I’m a techie, I was supposed to be in charge of digitally locking everyone in, and Grant thought I could go ahead of everyone and do that without supervision, except what I did instead was send out warnings so everyone could get out or arm up. By the time the others had arrived, there were only a few people left in the mall, all of them security or something.”
“What happened?” Jemma prompts, even though she thinks she knows.
“An ambush, which I mostly hid during,” Skye says plainly. “And when Grant was having some showdown with one of the mall cops, I saw the opportunity, I jumped in, I staked the bastard. And I ran. I don’t know who got out, but at least one of them must have, all things considered.”
“You actually killed your own Maker,” Jemma mumbles. “I… that never…”
“I think it does more than you hear about,” Skye shrugs. “They probably don’t like it to get around super often ‘cause it’d fuck up morale, you know?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Jemma says. “I mean that you’re a badass.”
“I’m nothing special,” Skye insists.
“Beg to differ,” Jemma retorts, scooting up to press a kiss to the underside of Skye’s jaw. “And you’re a total badass. Is that why Tasha knew?”
“Natasha knew ‘cause in certain circles, I became kind of an urban legend,” Skye admits. “That’s why it was kind of exciting for me when, well, you wanted to get to know me, not the myth or whatever.”
“Of course!” Jemma exclaims. “I mean, this makes you a badass, but you were a badass in my eyes before. A gorgeous, clever badass. And for all that you’re compensating for how my Maker messed up in teaching me things, I’d like to compensate for how yours messed up by being generally terrible.”
Skye can’t help but burst out laughing at that. “You’re doing a good job, sweetheart,” she assures once she’s calmed. “I think between the two of us we’re gonna be okay.”
“I think so, too,” Jemma agrees, throwing a leg over Skye’s waist and snuggling up closer.