begmetwice | Apartment Above Dite's

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Apartment Above Dite's | Wednesday Morning

There were very few things Irene enjoyed more, truly, than a good, comfortable lie-in. Particularly one with company, of course, but that came with its own, 'sometimes the people we love have terrible habits and like getting out of bed promptly,' problems.

(And sometimes that just necessitated the formation of a compelling argument before caffeine, was all.)

Which was why, when Irene barely stirred into consciousness at the first tickle of sunlight this morning, she fairly immediately snuggled right into Amaya. Lazy morning time could be precious, cuddling could be resisted (though doing so in earnest seemed to be a thing of the distant past, for the most part), and arguments -- non-verbal ones, at least, in the form of curling her body into Amaya's and draping a leg to keep everyone snugged up -- needed to be made.

Of course, had she made a verbal argument for staying in bed all morning, it would have been immediately apparent that today was no ordinary Wednesday.

Surely that discovery would be incredibly welcome, and perfectly fine with everyone in this bed once it was made.

[for that gal who LOVES truth day!!!]

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Look, Amaya was just not a cuddler, okay? And while her capacity for cuddles had increased considerably over the last couple of years, there was still a very low cap on that reservoir. Scientifically-inclined minds might make the argument that the cap had been reached and possibly even exceeded before and after the activities of the night before that lead them to his embarrassing state of morning couples, but those minds might also debate that they'd clearly had a long rest, those cuddle slots that had previously been filled were now open to be tapped into again...

But pre-caffeine was definitely cuddling's support ally in this case, as Amaya just let out a slightly sleepy murmur of approval as she shifted a little under Irene to make her snuggling pursuits a little more comfy.

"S'nice," she added to the murmuring, without even really realizing she'd managed to actually form words with that one.

And that shift garnered a long, content sigh from Irene, who immediately nestled her head into the crook of Amaya's shoulder, idly pressing a kiss to her neck before settling.

"Mmhmm. Maybe as good as the sex," she murmured, and -- okay, that was clearly some pre-caffeine talking. Not that she didn't feel that way -- she did, and really, maybe it was sometimes even better than sex, this level of intimacy, and how long it had taken to get here just added to that, and....

Well. Whatever. It wasn't exactly a secret that Irene liked a cuddle. At least, if it was anything of a secret, it was something Amaya had likely uncovered long, long ago.

"Not as good as the sex," Amaya insisted, with a form conviction that definitely caught her a little off-guard for how early and pre-coffee it was, but, well, it was true. Because she may not be into the whole snuggling thing all the much, but she was definitely into the whole sex thing, even if it was sometimes begrudgingly.

(Not that that had been an issue in a while).

"The sex," she extrapolated, "is amazing. This is..."

Another small shift, one that really reminded her of all the ways Irene fit against her when she nuzzled into her like this.

"Also amazing?"

She's meant to say 'okay', which was actually going to be very high praise for a non-cuddler! But that came out instead, and she frowned.

"Obviously," she felt the urge to clarify, "not as amazing, but I do actually really enjoy when you're all cuddled up next to me, Irene."

....what?

....fucking what???

"Amazing in a different way," Irene felt compelled to supply -- when, ordinarily, she might have just kept that to herself and instead begun simply reveling in the words coming out of Amaya's mouth. Not that she wasn't doing plenty of that, too -- though, this latest proclamation did have Irene backing off just the slightest, inasmuch as her head raised up off Amaya's shoulder so she could smile at her in still-mildly-sleepy surprise. "You're the first woman I've ever wanted to actually sleep with this much, anyway, because -- "

Okay, wait, didn't mean to say that, at all. That was a bit much.

"-- I love how we fit together." And she did, but that sleepy smile was now fading into a little frown, because she certainly had not meant to say so very much, there. That kind of talk, friends, was how you potentially got yourself excused from the bed, and she was generally much more careful to keep her cards close to her chest, no matter how bare it might be at the moment.

Oh.

Oh no.

Amaya felt herself pulled into a sharp sense of awakeness even without the coffee as a terrible realization struck her. Because, yes, Irene had always been more emotionally honest that Amaya, but a brick was more emotionally honest than Amaya, it didn't take much, but this felt different than some of those teasing, coy things that Irene would sometimes say just to get a squirm out of her. This felt sincere. This felt honest. And Amaya had felt the way her heart seemed to just leap in her chest when the words I love left Irene's lips, and the way it plummeted down into her stomach in a tumbling spiral of relief and disappointment when it was followed by other words than just the one, and it was so palpable that all she could really do at first was groan and shift a little and try to think of something, anything to deflect away from the horrible, awful state of having feelings.

"I didn't even think two people could ever just fit together the way we do."

No. No! Not that! That wasn't deflecting at all!

"And I'm thinking now would be a good time to remind myself of how well those gags you got fit into my mouth, but in an entirely unsexy way," she found herself adding, thankfully, for good measure.

At least she could be honest about how she hated being honest, too!

And meanwhile, Irene was trying desperately to quell the spike of panic that flooded her as soon as it clicked into place.

"Fucking truth day."

Last truth day, it hadn't been that bad. Or, well, it had -- it had almost been a textbook example of what could happen on such a day, actually, complete with an audience -- but it had turned out...well? Well enough that Irene was here, nestled against Amaya still, and hadn't felt the need to fake her death a third time, at least? And there had been some clarity, and while clarity still, even after all this time, threatened to be her undoing....

Well. Maybe part of all this was facing things like fucking truth day with her eyes open, yeah? There wasn't anything she really hid from Amaya, anymore. There were just plenty of things she didn't say out loud.

"Honestly, it's a waste of your mouth when we gag you, most times. I'd rather look into soundproofing our bedrooms this summer, really."

There was also that kind of honesty on the table, too. Maybe feelings, which threatened to pour out of her mouth on the best of days anyway (and which often successfully did pour out of her eyes, unbidden) could take a backseat to sexiness? Maybe that game was worth continuing to play?

"Though you do look absolutely gorgeous like that." Ugh, though, see? Gorgeous was something she generally kept in her head. "But I think you might be prettiest when you first wake up."

STOP.

See? See? The problem with leaning in toward the sexiness was that the sexiness had, somehow, managed to get tied up into those feelings! When did that happen? That was categorically not allowed!

First was the blushing. Then came the small squirm and the wrinkle of Amaya's nose. Then came the concentrated effort to avoid what she really felt like saying by focusing on the easiest, most simple part of all of what Irene had said.

"Soundproofing should be easy enough," she said, "and you know how I love a good project."

There was a pause, almost waiting for her mouth to keep going with more, but when she managed to actually stop at that, she nodded.

"Good," she said, foolishly, "I was really worried for a second there that I was going to go into a whole thing about how I couldn't even pick when you're prettiest, because that's pretty much always."

....dammit.

Irene's smile was back, softer this time, and she felt her own face warm just a little. That wasn't particularly any kind of revelation -- Irene had been using her looks to her advantage for the better part of two decades, now -- but it still sent a little flip through her chest to hear it from Amaya. (Particularly now, with messy hair and no makeup and not a hyaluronic acid in sight.)

"Do you not believe you're pretty?" Irene wondered, which was a question she had always been curious about, and that nose wrinkle just pulled it out of her where she might have left things alone, on a different day. "Or do you not like hearing it?"

She tempered her question by reaching a hand, light and easy and soft, to very carefully smooth down Amaya's hair -- which, of course, was an impossible task and she knew it, but she also had pointedly shed her jewelry last night so that she could even attempt hair-playing as a general practice.

"Because I think you're fucking beautiful, Amaya. All the time." And see, the nice thing about truth day was that there truly was no way Irene was just flattering or blowing smoke, was there? She really did believe that. (Which was, in a way, almost a little surprising to Irene herself, the absolute truth of that. And, if she examined it, it also had remarkably little to do with her actual, physical attraction to Amaya -- but that was a bridge she could try to resist pitching herself off all morning, wasn't it?)

The blush was absolutely in full force now, and Amaya sucked in a breath, feeling incredibly naked and exposed in a way that had nothing to do with her utter lack of clothing right now. And she tried to navigate herself around a response before daring to open her mouth, but then she made the mistake of looking at Irene, with that hand in her ridiculous, untamable hair, and then everything in her just seemed to sort of loosen and almost unravel with a resigned sort of sigh.

"It's just," she said, wincing a little at the frankness in her voice, and the fact that her tone was even betraying her with its honesty in the slight note of desperation there, "I don't know what to do with pretty. But I do know that I'm not beautiful or glamorous in the way you, or someone else you can or have been with, are," and her own fingers had started to work their way toward Irene's much more cooperative hair, "so if you still feel that way, then there's...obviously...probably..." A lump had lifted in her throat, making it difficult to get more words out, and normally, Amaya would use that as a convenient excuse to just stop talking, but the words insisted on pushing and marching past it instead, "...some....something...more," that word almost came out like the vocal representation of a deep wince, "there...."

"I don't think it has much to do with being glamorous," Irene told her, her voice so soft it was scarcely above a whisper. "It doesn't matter if you're dressed up or have your hair styled or...you don't have to look like me, Amaya, I don't want that. It has to do with you."

So, yes. There was something more there. There had been something more there for ages, now, just sitting there in the back of Irene's mind and gently prodding from time to time -- when Amaya smiled, and she felt her heart stop, or the times when Irene could see her beautiful (beautiful) brain on display as she worked through something, and she longed to just say it.

"And I'm too much of a coward to tell you how --" She cut herself off, abrupt, her eyes fixed on Amaya's as she exhaled sharply through her nose, and reconsidered. "I'm afraid of telling you how I really feel, most days."

There. That was...skating up to the words that dominated her thoughts, and occasionally threatened to spill out on non-truth days. And while she trusted Amaya not to...you know, use the knowledge of Irene's feelings to turn her over to the British government, as a totally random example, it was still terrifying to even consider being so vulnerable. (The admission that she was ever afraid of anything, really, was huge!)

When Irene's eyes met hers, it was all Amaya could do but practically stare right back, somewhat locked into them and actually glad for it, because locking into her gaze allowed her to hold onto something tightly and firmly to keep from completely spinning out in this tumultuous swell of both dread and excitement rushing through her.

"So am I," she admitted, and there was a small untangling of one knot that almost felt like relief, although it didn't really do much in the sea of tension that had settled into practically every inch of her, except, perhaps, those fingers still lightly brushing through Irene's hair. "A coward. Afraid. Of...all this. What it is. What it means. What we're supposed to do about it. If anything. Part of me insists that we don't have to do anything, but a...another part of me doesn't want to not do anythi--"

A bit belatedly, she finally managed to cut herself off. "Zards, I'm no good at any of this mushy stuff! Any of these fe--

"Any of these feeeeee--"

Yes, even on Truth Day, she was still going to struggle with certain things. The main difference was that she was going to have no choice but to push right through those struggles.

A slightly wrenching bleeacgh sound pushed out of her.

"Feelings."

Ugh, the word even tasted awful.

"I think you're fine at this, you just get in your own way a lot," Irene told her, quirking a half smile to acknowledge that she might not have said all of that, normally. Definitely not with the emphasis, but there was more than a little affection there, too. That hand in Amaya's hair made its way to her neck, and then to her shoulder, where Irene took up the drawing of idle, comforting circles with her fingertips.

"I -- before I came here, someone hurt me very badly, and they used the fact that I felt things for them to do it," she offered, unsure of whether to even open that particular can of worms. "And even before all that, I've never been a particularly good girlfriend."

Even saying the word made her nose scrunch up. Labels just asked for failure to meet expectations, really. Better to leave them where they belonged: on clothes she paid too much for.

"But I...think about you, all the time. I think about what you'd think of clothes before I buy them. I think about whether you'd like a book when I see it or read a review. I think about how you need to see a goddamned optometrist. And somewhere, I stopped being scared of what it meant, and just accepted that I'm in love with you, Amaya."

There it was.

And Irene had, quite possibly, never been so afraid of what she might lose, and it was all over her face, and those wide eyes boring into Amaya's.

"Mushy though it might be."

All those tight little knots of tension laced throughout Amaya's body did an interesting thing just then. They seized and tightened inside of her almost violently at the utterance of a word like girlfriend, but slowly, gradually, the more Irene spoke, the more her words filtered up through Amaya's ears, those knots loosened again, they started to relax, and, by the time she was finished, they felt almost completely unraveled.

And then...

There it was

Amaya expected all those knots to snap right back into place, but...they didn't. She felt like her heart was going to explode from all the thumping it was doing in her chest, and she sucked in a breath, and for a brief moment, she wasn't sure what was going to come out of her mouth when she opened it: words or possibly vomit instead.

Nor did she know which would have been worse.

It ended up being the words, though, the words she knew would be inevitable the moment they passed through Irene's lips as well.

"I'm in love with you, too, Irene."

Just that, barely a whisper, because she was too terrified in that moment to dare trying to say anything else, but her fingers were there in her hair, and her gaze was steady on hers, and there was no going back now.

Irene would have thought the words were a lot better than vomit, for what it was worth, even before she heard them.

And for a second, she was half-convinced she hadn't heard what she had, or that she'd hallucinated what Amaya had said. She'd imagined hearing those words (or similar ones, anyway; she had a very active imagination, after all) for such a long time, and so much of their relationship had been tentative and teasing that it was almost inconceivable to her that either of them would ever, actually, come out with the truth of it.

But there it was.

"Oh, thank god," she murmured after a moment's pause, leaning forward to close the distance between them with a very, very needed kiss. Her heart was still pounding so hard she was positive Amaya could probably feel it, too. "I was going to have to scale out the window out of shame if you'd said anything else."

You might think that was an exaggeration, but no, it was still truth day! And she had the icon!

Immediately after she said it, Amaya wanted to protest. She wanted to take it back, pretend she hadn't said anything, boldly claim she'd said something else entirely. But she couldn't, could she? She knew that wasn't how this worked.

But then Irene was kissing her, and it was impossible for her to regret even a single breath of it. And she fell into that kiss so completely that it felt like the only thing grounding her had fallen away when Irene spoke again.

It didn't help that what she said, cheeky reference to an icon as it may be, struck hard to the very crux of why she wasn't sure of just throwing up instead might have been better, actually.

She was not proud of the desperate sounds that escaped her, and would like it kindly struck from the record. Especially when she knew it was just supposed to be (mostly?) be just a light, flippant bit of levity to lift the weight of the situation.

"Please don't," she whispered, her arm pulling Irene closer to her. "I don't...I don't want you to leave."

And considering that this was Irene's apartment, Irene's room, that was probably a good indication that she didn't just mean the bed...

Irene took a moment just to kiss her, pouring as much reassurance into it as she could even as her mind worked at double speed. Joke though it was (and truthful-feeling joke though it might have been), that was a fairly unexpected reaction. Especially since, yes, this was Irene's very bed they were in, and she had zero plans to vacate it any time soon.

Or Amaya's arms. Or the island, wholecloth.

"I'm not going anywhere, love," she whispered, nuzzling lightly along Amaya's jaw before lifting her hand back up to cup her face. "I promise. Are you -- have you been worried I might?"

It explained so much. Maybe Irene wasn't the only one with a tricky, painful past.

"Well," said Amaya, brow knitted as that desperate feeling just channelled itself into her look back at Irene, and she was starting to sound almost angry about it now, "that's what happens, isn't it? People leave. Everyone always leaves. And that's what makes this so terrible, because we've been able to hold on for so long, but now we've gone and said the thing, and that's it, after that, game over. It's doomed."

"Or," Irene suggested with a gentle nudge of her foot against Amaya's leg, her tone cautious -- almost like she was testing whether what she was saying would be permitted to pass as the truth, "we just keep doing what we have been, and nothing changes? Do you know how many times I've almost accidentally said I love you, just because you were being all -- y'know, loveable? Nothing's doomed, now. It's just...out loud."

She kind of liked hearing herself say it, actually.

Amaya relaxed, a little, thanks to that gentle nudge, those cautious words, and just hearing Irene saying it again. Throwing up, unfortunately, still felt like it was very much on the table, if only now for all the emotional whiplash she was feeling right now.

"I'd like that," she said. "I really would, but..."

A hesitation, an attempt to hold it back, but the wound had already been rendered open, and the wellspring of honesty and all the things she kept buried so deep underneath it all was just going to keep gushing forward.

She sighed, shaking her head before ducking it toward Irene's. "Papa always warned me," she said quietly, "to never actually be with anyone you loved, because then, when they left, it wouldn't matter, because you didn't love 'em anyway...but I just...couldn't help myself. With you..."

"That's a marvelous way to tell yourself you won't be hurt," Irene offered softly, just going ahead and leaning her forehead against Amaya's. "I didn't mean to, either. You were just supposed to be this pretty blacksmith with absolutely killer guns who I liked to flirt with. But then you went and you were you, and there I went and...I told myself I could never be like that with someone again, when I came here. It's terrifying to be that vulnerable, yeah? Against your will and everything, too."

She got it, Amaya. She really, really did.

A beat, and then -- maybe an even deeper confession than her prior one: "But I trust you."

And Irene, as a general rule, did not trust anyone with anything. But maybe she could make just one exception.

"I know," said Amaya, with a softness that turned into a faint huff. "I am a pretty trustworthy person, after all."

But the relief in being able to lean into a bad joke was short lived as the sincerity she just could escape slipped right back in with a sigh.

"But I also know it's more than that," she said. "Because...well, I mean, because of London, and all that, and I...ugh."

There were those knots again, but these ones felt slightly different.

"I'm so bad at all of this stuff!"

"No, you're just you, and I'm pretty fluent in you, now. Why do you think you are, though?" Irene asked, genuinely wanting an answer and knowing she'd get one today. Her foot nudged gently against Amaya's leg again, just to reaffirm the comforting touch. "Did something happen to make you think you're bad at all this?"

Because for most of their association, Irene had suspected that Amaya was her own worst enemy when it came to matters of the heart (and, well before that, matters of letting the fancy lady who wouldn't leave you alone take you to bed.) And while she had her suspicions, she had never quite nailed down -- or wanted to ask -- whether it was a matter of prior relationships, or insecurity, or an unknown quantity, or a combination thereof.

Edited 2024-04-11 12:37 (UTC)

Amaya snorted at the question, but most of the sharp derisiveness in the response had soothed and settled into something softer again almost immediately afterwards. "Yeah," she said, "me. I'm not good at this, Irene. It's just not something that comes natural to me! You know I love a challenge, but not like this. It's hard and difficult and doesn't make a lick of sense, and, usually, I'm either mucking it all up or the other person does me a blessing by getting to the leaving part before I get the chance to!"

She sighed, and hoped she could just leave it at that, but she knew better, on a day like today, and she really had to think of a way to start getting this off of her so much.

"I think it's just easier, too," she said, "to just muck it up and move on and get back to more important things that make sense..."

"Well, yes, that part sounds very Amaya," she agreed, having to smile a little at the way that particular truth formed itself as a thought. "But -- this is also important, babes. You're important. I am, too."

We know, Irene.

"And we all muck things up in our own ways," she added. "I'm a bloody disaster when it comes to this stuff, I just hide it pretty well. But maybe if we know we're both trying not to muck it up, it'll...help?"

She looked a little pained, momentarily, because an errant thought about just how much of a disaster Irene was had drifted across her mind, and she needed all thoughts of him and I AM _ _ _ _ LOCKED and what she'd lost to stay obediently buried today, thank you.

"If you're a disaster when it comes to this sort of thing," Amaya said, and this time, her snort built into a huff of a marveling, skeptical laugh, but it was...oddly reassuring, that realization that, impossible as it seemed, it wasn't as if Irene could be lying to her about it right now, "I don't even want to know what that makes me. Because you're wonderful."

Even the soft, almost awe way in which her tone shifted with the word betrayed any attempts to not sound too mushy about it, so enjoy this open display of gushing while you could, Adler, it was not likely to come out of her again any time soon after this!

You know what? Maybe truth day was her favorite, now. Because yeah, Irene fully expected a total lack of gushing -- quite possibly never another single utterance of any L-words, even -- on every other normal day hence.

Because that's the thing, right? She didn't actually fall in love with Truth Day Amaya, she fell in love with regular, stubborn, I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about-what-even-is-a-feeling Amaya.

But it was still so nice to hear. So, so nice to hear.

"I wasn't always so wonderful," Irene told her, a faint, pleased pinkness creeping up her neck all the same. And that shouldn't have been a revelation, of course, but -- "Not just with the blackmail stuff, I mean. Bad girlfriend and all, right? But you're wonderful enough yourself to make good behavior worth it."

With, perhaps, an occasional spot of bad behavior, and that was probably Irene's cue to lean in for another kiss, right?

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Apartment Above Dite's | Wednesday Morning

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