Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/8264897.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      Other
  Fandom:
      ジョジョの奇妙な冒険_|_JoJo_no_Kimyou_na_Bouken_|_JoJo's_Bizarre_Adventure
  Relationship:
      Hirose_Koichi/Kishibe_Rohan
  Character:
      Hirose_Koichi, Kishibe_Rohan
  Additional Tags:
      Bestiality, Don't_open_unless_you're_ready_to_read_about_dogfucking, i
      warned_you, The_ship_is_more_hinted_than_anything, Improper_use_of
      Heaven's_Door, Mind_Manipulation
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-10-12 Words: 4359
****** Vile ******
by KyrieFortune
Summary
     Kishibe Rohan brings Hirose Koichi to his house for an experiment he
     had on his mind for quite some time.
Notes
     This fic was *ahem* requested by Twitter user @Lrennu
     I REPEAT, the fic contains heavy doses of bestiality, don't read if
     you're disgusted or even just uncomfortable with this, thanks I know
     I'm disgusting don't need to tell me
     Comments and kudos are super duper appreciated! ;3;
     (The title is a Cannibal Corpse's album, you know you're in for a
     ride)
See the end of the work for more notes
Kishibe Rohan was a solitary, strange man. He was still young, still just
twenty years old, but unlike the vast majority of his peers, he wasn’t
struggling with the exams overbearing their shoulders, or with all the pick-up
lines and techniques to conquer the woman they wanted, or with the search of a
secure, stable job. He’d never struggled with school, but he never wished to
continue at an academic level, instead working on what he was pouring his soul
in, inking page after page, research after research. He never bothered with
finding a soulmate either, in his mind it was just going to be another burden
he didn’t need, he was perfectly fine by himself. Was he too self-centered? Of
course, Rohan never denied to be so concentrated on himself with little care of
others, but he didn’t naturally like the company of other people, and after
all, he was an interesting person on his own, his quality time on himself was
more than well spent.
Indeed, for some, Kishibe Rohan, the great comic artist was a solitary, strange
man. But aren’t all comic artists supposed to be weird and isolated after all?
There’s a certain charm in those artists who don’t disclose so much their ideas
and grow around themselves walls of mystery, even if their work revolves around
simple observation of how real life is and works, with everyone walking around
and working their days, sometimes peeking into the memories of someone he
deemed interesting. His power was a blessing and a curse, he was able to
analyze real life better than he ever did, but he was thirsty for more mundane
knowledge, he couldn’t just let everyone get away without knowing about their
misadventures.
Seldom he wondered what would happen if someone read his mind if they had a
Stand like his Heaven’s Door. Surely, if someone had such a power, they
wouldn’t pass the occasion of checking the mind of Kishibe Rohan, one of the
greatest comic artists ever to exist, and steal all of his ideas for his
masterpiece, and he chuckled at the thought of the thief’s horror if he ever
read through what Rohan had to witness in his a little more than twenty years
of life.
Then, however, he recalled some of the most obscure secrets he hid even to
himself, too ashamed to admit he could have such depraved curiosities. It was
just his instinct of learning real life, but there were things no one should
never learn. He was a man, and like most men his age he had some natural issues
to deal with, regardless of how much he wasn’t interested in romanticism and
what usually ensues with other people, but sometimes in the middle of his short
sessions of self-love he had to stop, grab his head between his hands smelling
like his genitalia, and had wash himself in cold water, as if he had to cleanse
his body and soul from all that was tainting him. Not that he had a particular
belief about souls, even if he had seen traces of the afterlife, but those
ideas were sick and dangerous, even a man like him would know that. It wasn’t
as threatening as having an urge to kill and sever hands, but perhaps it was
just as nauseating, and he couldn’t let anyone discover that horrible side of
him.
For many, Kishibe Rohan was a solitary, strange man. When he wasn’t busy inking
Pink Dark Boy, he’d look everyone from his usual seat from an outside table of
the café he always had breakfast or his afternoon coffee to when he wasn’t
around the world travelling, try and deduce their stories from their gestures,
how they walked, what they wore, and yes, he was a strange man who liked to spy
on everyone’s life from his little lonely corner where he cultivated his
egoism. He had very few acquaintances, none he called friends but they called
him so, and had little to no contacts with his family, he passed most of his
time studying the human nature while not wanting to discover the pleasure of
staying with someone else, he affirmed such trivialities weren’t made for him
or for his comic.
Yes, Kishibe Rohan was a solitary, strange man, a curious character, at times a
mad artist like one thinks artists all are. Hirose Hirose believed he was
amazing, despite his horrible habit of using him as some sort of human guinea
pig, but that was in the past. Rohan hadn’t laid a finger on him since then,
even helped him and the rest of his group when needed, even if the artist kept
saying that was just a debt he had to pay back, not genuine apprehension, but
after a while it had been clear to everyone he was lying to himself, that he
cared and was too much of a proud man to admit such weak emotions.
«Ah, Koichi, I was just looking for you».
Rohan was so quick in his approach that Koichi was left with the hand halfway
of a wave and his “Good morning, sensei” hanging from his mouth. It usually
wasn’t good news when Rohan looked for him, he had learnt at his expenses.
«Oh, really…? What for?».
Something in Rohan had clicked as soon as he saw the young boy, something that
he knew was up to no good. He knew that it wasn’t just “something”, it was him,
it was an idea that he had consciously cultivated in the latest days and it was
just easier to blame it on his subconscious going haywire, and even that sudden
question had been pondered for quite some minutes, and as soon as he said it,
he knew he couldn’t hold himself back.
«Would you come help me? It’s a private matter, and I don’t wish for nosey
meddlers to interfere».
«You mean, Josuke and Okuyasu? Oh, don’t worry, I won’t call them, I know you
aren’t planning anything weird, right, sensei?».
Rohan was so glad Koichi’s power had no effect on him, and he knew that as long
as the younger one thought he didn’t want to harm him, he could potentially
have full control of him. That was what he kept saying to himself, he didn’t
want to harm him after all, what he had in mind was an experiment, and hurting
Koichi was the last thing he wanted to do. «Of course, Koichi, it’s nothing
that will physically hurt you» he half-lied.
The boy wasn’t new to the artist’s bizarre plans, some indeed dangerous and
that almost risked everyone’s life, and secretly he was glad Rohan slowly
opened himself and admitted he couldn’t do everything alone, he knew for him it
took an immeasurable amount of courage to ask for help, and perhaps an even
more infinite amount to consider someone as a friend, a person he could truly
trust. If only he knew what Rohan had in mind, he would instead have run far
away from him and never wanted to see him ever again.
As soon as the wooden door closed behind him, the sketchy figure in the form of
Pink Dark Boy, Rohan’s Heaven’s Door, came out of his chest with a sparkle and
on the boy’s nape pages quickly appeared and flicked one after the other, full
of images, some even moving, and with thick lines of tiny characters, many
things that Rohan already when, some he experienced firsthand, and some were
nonetheless a surprise - last time he checked his life memories, there wasn’t
such a detailed description of Yamagishi Yukako’s naked body… but he was
wandering off his objective. He finally arrived at the latest page, updating in
that exact moment with the description of his meeting with Rohan, how the
sensei has kept silent about this mysterious issue , most likely expecting
Koichi to trust his judgement blindly, and how he knew by the tickling behind
his neck the sketchy Stand was browsing through his thoughts.
Rohan had weighted his command from the first to the last word, found the best
way to avoid activating his older command that forbade him from laying even a
finger on the boy.
 
Hirose Koichi won’t remember anything that will happen from this very instant
to the moment he will step out of my house, for the sake of his own sanity, and
he will follow every order of mine without questioning them.
 
Koichi’s body lost a bit of colour and seemed to have instantaneously lost some
strength, judging by the jiggle of his knees. For a moment, he feared the
whistle in his ears was Echoesreacting and ready to punch him with no holds
barred, but there was no trace of the Stand, and after some instants have
passed and the whistle blurred into silence, he realised it was his eardrums
perceiving the drum-like sound of his accelerated heartbeat from his inside of
his body. When he made himself sure his heart came back to a normal pace, he
approached Koichi, patted his shoulder and asked «Are you alright, Koichi?».
The boy nodded without uttering a sound, and as Rohan grabbed his wrist and
tugged him, his heavy steps followed the artist’s upstairs, his eyes lacking
any shine, as if that simple order sucked away his life force.
The windows of the studio where Rohan worked his days off were closed, only a
dim light passed between the shutters. In a corner, there was a large dark mass
of colour that breathed slowly, and Koichi turned his head towards it, trying
to understand what it could be. Rohan closed the door behind him and locked it
with a clank, and in that moment the student seemed to regain some
consciousness.
«Is that a dog?».
«Don’t mind it for now, Koichi, look at me instead» Rohan held his chin up and
brushed the thumb against his lips, slightly gaping. There was a gasp noise
when the artist gently pressed his lips on his, warm and pale somehow violated
by cold and even paler, and a push that lacked any real intention of putting
space between them.
«What are you doing, sensei-».
«I told you that I needed your help, didn’t I, Koichi?». Rohan’s mouth curled
in a smile that in the shadows looked creepier than it was supposed to,
although one could argue the shadows showed his real, perverted nature. He’d
never liked anyone, and he was sure enough he didn’t like Hirose Koichi either,
not in a way normal people usually liked other people. He didn’t love anyone
but himself, he had never found anyone interesting enough for him, even if
sometimes he found himself breathless admiring someone’s beauty, but it had
always been more of a Stendhal’s syndrome, not proper love. He didn’t find the
boy handsome either, in his extremely hard to satisfy tastes he was cute at
best, but the potential for evolution inside him together with his
righteousness was too great to be ignored, and Rohan wanted to push him in
filthy corners just to see his reaction. It was a shame he had to use such
cheap tactics to get what he wanted from him - he couldn’t call himself
Koichi’s friend for this, using him as a toy for his most barbaric needs.
Koichi’s eyes still looked empty and like the ones of a child who’s just lost
themselves, but whatever thought, whatever reaction of fight-or-flight he had
had, they all got lost in the shaking hands of Rohan as he unbuttoned his
uniform and, his face turning red of embarrassment (even a person without much
shame like him after all couldn’t keep a poker face while baring someone’s
body), showing first his chest, still wondering how could an apparently weak
boy have such nice muscles, and then his legs and, lastly, his genitals hanging
in betwee. The hair crowning the base of his penis was much thicker than Rohan
expected, but then again, Koichi always demonstrated to be beyond any
expectation of the artist, and it only aroused his sick curiosity. He watered,
he had to swallow his own spit a couple of times as the idea of mouthing his
growing erection, wondering how its warm flesh would harden and grow between
his lips, slithered in his mind.
He had, however, different plans.
Rohan snapped his fingers in the direction of the breathing mass in the corner
«C’mere, boy». The dog, as Koichi rightfully understood, was a massive
Neapolitan Mastiff, its dark old skin dangling loose from its large body, that
the artist found roaming around the countryside of Nara in his latest travel.
It didn’t have much time left, but something deeply questionable had clicked in
Rohan’s mind when he saw how despite the age it still had powerful legs and a
remarkable stamina and - he tightly closed his eyes for a moment, before
opening them and checking his orders on the dog’s simple mind one last time.
«Can you guess what will happen now, Koichi?» he murmured, helping the boy sit
on the wooden floor, spread his legs wide open like an ehibitionist in front of
the mastiff’s drooling muzzle. The boy gave a slow nod, there was no trace of
fear in his eyes, but not one of anticipation either, they were merely
acknowledging what was about to happen.
«Relax».
«I am relaxed, sensei». Koichi laid his head against Rohan’s chest, and despite
his lifeless stare he gasped when, after its nose sniffed him, the long pink
tongue lapped his scrotum, licked messily all over his member arching downward
between his thighs, covered the whole thing in smelly drool. There wasn’t a
good technique in its oral, it couldn’t use its jaws to take Koichi’s manhood
and suck it like a person would, it would have hurt him with its rotten fangs,
but it stimulated the naked boy in Rohan’s arms all the same.
Unknown to both, Rohan himself was the one most aroused by the scene, peeking
between the pages of Koichi’s consciousness to fully understand what he was
feeling behind his tired-like expression, muttering to himself it was an
experiment, a necessary sacrifice for the sake of art as his eyes skimmed
through the details of the dog’s taste buds rubbing against Koichi’s skin, how
the heat was building in his stomach and gripping the base of his dick like
growing tentacles. Rohan found himself thinking Koichi was so lucky to be
feeling like this, negating his own real sensations that for years have taunted
him in his weakest moments.
Koichi began to articulate his voice into small moans, gasping regularly as the
animal thoroughly licked all over, even his clenched hole that would need more
than canine licks to accept the inevitable; Rohan read not without anxiety as
Koichi realised what was really happening, but didn’t have the will to fight
it. Rohan brushed the boy’s chest, felt his heart beating hard and quick, and
found the way he bit his lips and avoided looking at the pet pleasing him
adorable. His voice cracked the more his erection was stimulated, his thoughts
becoming less coherent, repeating the epiphany of being about to be fucked by a
dog, convincing himself about how wrong it was and how he was going to kill
Rohan for this, before interrupting his own line of thoughts with primal
desires, knowing he was getting closer and closer to his orgasm and knowing a
tiny part of him wanted it to happen. If it was his genuine reaction, his
genuine wish hidden away even from the artist’s preying eyes, or simply the
after effect of Heaven’s Door, Rohan couldn’t tell.
The older one laid his personal guinea pig on the floor and snapped his fingers
in the direction of the giant pet. It crawled over Koichi’s body, its paws just
a bit over his shoulders, drooling between his decaying jaws over the boy’s
face, and his member right over Koichi’s abdomen. It was panting in
anticipation of joining with what in its eyes probably looked like a regular
bitch, and Rohan could see the pink end peeking and leaking from the sheath,
something that made his own erection more swollen, tainting his underwear in
precum.
He felt dirty as he couldn’t hide to himself anymore that he liked the sight,
no, not liked, he had dreamt of seeing something like that for longer that he
could admit, and even then it wasn’t like it was supposed to be. He held his
breath, his eyes stared with the utmost attention like he was trying to burn
the image in his own eyes as the spit helped the tip press against the tight
right of muscles of Koichi, the mastiff’s cock forcing it open and making
Koichi tear up and let out a strangled cry that looped at each thrust, and
Rohan could only imagine how the thick unsheathing flesh could feel inside his
guts, the girth violating Koichi’s body in quick pushes deeper and deeper. The
boy’s legs shook, his hands protected his face from more shame in a vision that
was much more chaotic than in Rohan’s fantasies, a scene so nauseating that
still made the artist so hard it felt like the constraints of his underwear
suffocated him.
Still, he kept telling himself it was just something he needed for his comic,
to observe human nature, even if led to such repelling abysses that he was too
scared to explore by himself. As a last attempt to keep the façade, he took the
camera he always had around, nothing spectacular, he had the humility to admit
he wasn’t a photographer but only someone who needed references, and focused on
Koichi’s body, flushed in pleasure, and told him «Let me see your face». The
boy obliged, showed his face covered in saliva and his tears of tension and
pain, and there was just enough time for Rohan to focus the lens before the dog
managed to fill Koichi to the brim and its base engorged, locking him into the
intercourse, and the pain was too much to bear, his anus could barely hold it
without tearing and bleeding, and as the thrusts became more powerful,
betraying the real strength of that stray with its floppy skin greying and its
mouth that couldn’t properly bite anymore, his body couldn’t take any more of
it, and covered his own abdomen in pearly drops, some ejaculated so hard they
reached his chest, and went on like this for some ten seconds until his sack
was emptied, together with a long strained moan.
Rohan couldn’t take any more of it as well, he couldn’t pretend anymore. He sat
on the floor, took pictures of the orgasming kid, and finally dropped any
excuse of art, nature, and admitted to himself he just wanted to see his worst
wet dreams come true with a hand finally working to open his trousers and grab
his prick and balls, moaned ugly profanities about wanting to see Koichi
mounted like a bitch, to be he himself pinned down and marked like the whore in
heat he really was. Sometimes he has excused himself he might have been
traumatised by what he witnessed when he was young, something he didn’t
remember until case and luck told him why he was so obsessed with human nature,
but even those were probably just excused for his wanton desire of making a dog
mate with him.
Kishibe Rohan was a solitary, strange, sick man. He wasn’t that much better
than the guy who strangled beautiful women and cut off their pretty hands as a
trophy and as a manner to quench his inhuman thirst. He wasn’t even brave
enough to be himself a zoophile, instead using innocent high-schoolers who were
unlucky enough to talk to him on a regular basis to observe how sex between a
man and an animal would work. How disgusting he was, grabbing his length and
rubbing his fingers like his life meant on it, licking his lips wishing he was
in Koichi’s place, or maybe even in the dog’s place, being the lucky man to be
filled and knotted or to be filling and tying down someone he didn’t get why he
was so interested in messing with, ruining and mistreating.
Did he really have the right to call himself a friend of him? How could he look
in his eyes the day after, pretending he hadn’t seen his body quiver in
pleasure, covered in fluids, pounded and spit on?
His own orgasm was short and blinded him for a couple instants, white seed
spurting in quick bursts and staining the floor and his clothes and dripping on
his fingers, holding his erection so tight his knuckles were pale. With his
hands glueing with sperm, he got up and walked around the two copulating on the
floor, taking even more pictures with better lights, different details, he
stared at the boy’s hole holding the pink knot inside, unable to get wider to
let it out, it could only get violated repeatedly and make its owner sigh and
lament how much it hurt and how good it felt. And then, just as quickly it
began, it ended, the dog’s knot retreated and left a gaping hole leaking much
more seed than Rohan imagined it could even hold or even get out of the dog’s
dick. Koichi was twitching and his chest moved like a piston, breathing to ease
the pain, and he couldn’t get up after all his strength left his limbs.
«Sen-sei… it hurts...».
Kishibe Rohan might have been a solitary, strange and sick man, but he wasn’t
heartless. Very self-centered, egoistic, narcissistic, but not completely
devoid of empathy. He ignored the mastiff that walked in a corner licking off
the residual sperm off itself, he held Koichi in his arms and lead him to the
bathtube, gently rinsed his body from all the fluids, and for once he respected
his privacy and didn’t take a peek in his mind to read his sensations and
emotions, instead murmuring everything was going to be alright, he was going to
forget everything, he was going to walk home without remembering he made a
random stray dog breed with him, he won’t even feel the pain in his intestine.
Koichi was smiling like nothing weird happened when he walked away, completely
clean and dry and unaware of the fact his body was in reality screaming in
pain. «I’m glad I got to help you, sensei!» he cheerfully chirped, his mind
mistakenly recalling something innocuous Rohan had written to override whatever
trace could have remained. The churning ache of guilt didn’t come as bad as the
artist expected, yet it was there, under his poker face, reminding him of the
revolting excuse of a person he really was as he slightly waved back at the
other and kept pretending he was a real friend who didn’t exploit him anymore,
who didn’t see him as a piece of meat.
Not that Koichi was just that to him. He really was a friend, Rohan thought
over the developing photos where the boy’s raped body outlined, although the
lighting was awful and some were blurred, that Koichi didn’t deserve to be
treated like this, he was a good, honest boy whose worst issues should have
been with school, not with being the favourite of a comic artist with a fucked
up sense of what sex was and meant, and of himself and others and their
wellbeing. He could make people do the ugliest stuff, and then he would write a
sentence and everything would be alright. He could manipulate anyone, no, he
had already manipulated people, he already was satisfying his morbid curiosity,
he was stroking his slender fingers over his clothes getting himself hard
again, smirking and imagining himself towering and conquering Koichi, smiling
at the violent invasion of Rohan's hard member in his orifices just like he had
cried and smiled at the knot breaking his defenses.
He didn’t deserve it, Rohan knew that, but his mind had twisted in unpredicted
ways, and he could get away with it so easily… how could he not try and make
Koichi an even better source of inspiration? He just needed to wait and see if
wiping off his worst memories and will worked, and then he could do anything
with him, abuse the power of his Heaven’s Door as much as he could to grasp
everything Koichi had to offer, and if he managed to break out of the spell
Rohan could have blackmailed him, bringing up the menace of showing anonymously
the proof of his bestiality to Josuke, Jotaro, maybe even the whole town of
Morioh, let everyone know the “true” nature of Hirose Koichi. He had him in his
hands, he could do anything.
He stopped halfway with bile threatening to climb to his mouth. He heard the
dog yelp upstairs, and stared at the photos. What kind of monster he was? How
could he think such things? He had almost killed Koichi and his friends, sure,
but he had changed since then, hadn’t he? He glanced at the blurred image of
the boy’s open thighs with white viscous seed between them, and still couldn’t
come to terms that he might have become a slightly better person, he could now
have people to call acquaintances or even friends, but deep down, he was the
same solitary, strange man, only with a terrible weapon that had made him even
stranger and that he wasn’t afraid to use in the slightest.
When the yelps became too loud to be ignored, he went upstairs, where the dog
still hadn't moved far from the spot where it had mated minutes before, sweat
and spunk drying out, and only then Rohan’s mind finally clicked and convinced
him of what he should have accepted a long time ago: he might have had a weird
set of morals, but as he prepared to a pain he could have never been prepared
enough to accept, he murmured to himself the bare truth about how vile he
really was.
End Notes
     Google tried to suggest me actual bestiality, uh no I'm fine with
     regular non-visual dog copulation for my research thanks
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!
ow. All she had were her
memories, and her last memory of Waverly had her frightened and panting in a
shed, while a fire taller than a house burned outside. She looked so different.
So different, so much better.
It made Wynonna feel like. Like she’d planted the seeds years ago and was
coming back to reap them now.
“I never thought you’d look so…” fuckable. “Gorgeous”
It’s a miracle neither of them has accidentally hit the horn yet.
Wynonna starts to move her fingers more, deeper. Waverly’s face scrunches up
half way to pain, and she withdraws completely.
“No, wait, back in. It’s good.”
Wynonna obliges.
You make me feel like I'm livin' a teenage dream.
Wynonna can’t trust herself with this. All Waverly’s vulnerabilities –
emotional, sexual – are just there, and Wynonna can’t keep her filthy hands off
of it. Off of her.
Waverly should be doing this with someone else, in someone else’s truck. Some
boy. Or not a boy, even, it doesn’t matter. But it shouldn’t be her. Even if he
was just in it for the sex, even if he dropped her the second she put out, it’d
still be better. Wynonna doesn’t want to wish Waverly heartbreak, but it’s the
better alternative to this. This is just heartbreak, multiplied. This has no
possible good ending.
“Are you close?”
She is. She’s rocking her hips back and forth, greedy for the contact, and
Wynonna is solid and there and unflinching. “Need more.” She says. Wynonna
pushes in deeper, curls her fingers. Waverly’s breathe is coming out harsh and
in beats.
My heart stops, when you look at me.
“You’re so hot, Waverly, you look so good. Cum, baby, I want you to cum.”
“I’m gon- I’m gonna,”all the coiled up pleasure in her stomach unfurls all at
once, and Waverly closes her eyes tight. Wynonna surges forward and kisses her
through it, swallowing any of the sounds she makes. Waverly squeezes down on
Wynonna’s fingers for the better part of a minute. Wynonna doesn’t stop moving,
tries to help her ride it out as long as she can. When she’s finished, Waverly
realises how much tension she was holding in her body, and releases it.
“Fuck, babygirl,” Wynonna pulls her hand back and it’s all covered in slick,
she’s not sure she can grip the wheel right. Her jeans are already ruined so
she wipes her hand down on the denim.
Just one touch, now baby I believe, this is real.
Waverly feels all messy and a bit sore. She can’t decide if she likes it or
not. Four second after her orgasm finishes, and she’s already falling down so
fast. It’s amazing, the turn around, how quick arousal turns to disgust or
boredom after she cums. She’s not interested in sex anymore, but Wynonna…
Wynonna hasn’t cum yet, and the whites of her eyes look black. She’s not sure
if Wynonna will ask her to do anything, if she’d do it if she did.
Wynonna breaks her gaze away. With one hand, she pushed on Waverly’s hip. She
takes the hint and shifts back to the passenger side. She fixes her underwear
back into place.
So take a chance and don't ever look back, don’t ever look back.
“Are you staying?” Waverly asks.
Wynonna starts the car.
///
At school the next day, Waverly wants to tell someone, but this is the
stickiest secret she's ever had, the one she has to keep closest to her chest.
She tells her friends a half sanitized version: everything is the same - the
car, the place, the time - everything but the person. She invents a boy named
Michael and gives him dark hair, dark eyes, long fingers. She rips the memory
of Wynonna apart and drapes it over him, and talks about him like she’s in
love.
She’s the first of all of them to lose her virginity, and when she tells them
the dirty details they all lean in and giggle like they’re getting away with
something.
They don’t know anything.
///
Wynonna skips town again four days later. She leaves her truck parked outside
Gus and Curtis’ house, with a note tucked under the windshield wiper.
Learn to drive. Consider this incentive.
///
When her mystery man doesn't materialise in time for junior prom, all her
friends feel sorry for her getting dumped. Champ swoops in just in time,
offering more than asking, to go with her. How nice of him. How lucky for her.
///
     Waverly: btw im seeing Champ now.
     Wynonna: Hardy?
     Waverly: yeah, we’re going to prom
     Wynonna: he’s an idiot.
     Waverly: he’s nice
     Wynonna: he doesn’t deserve you.
     Wynonna: youre mine youre mine youre mine
///
She has sex with Champ, also, in the cab of that same truck. It's the night
after their six month anniversary and Waverly can't really put it off anymore.
She tells Champ that he's her first, and he tells her that she's his first,
too. They're both lying. The condoms Champ has are the wrong size and it takes
him three tries to get it on. Waverly doesn't say anything, doesn't offer to
help. She imagines that this truck still belongs to Wynonna, that Wynonna is
still the driver. It's over in a few minutes.
He's not as good as Wynonna. She doesn't know if that's a gay thing, or a
Wynonna thing. She decides not to think about it too much, and rights her skirt
after he finishes. She doesn't get off. He kisses her and says how much he
loves her, how pretty she is; and for all his failings, Waverly knows he means
it. He's nice. He's honest about what he is. He's a stereotype, and there's
comfort in that. There are other boys who've shown interest in her, everyone
from artists to punks to nerdy types who think she isn't interested in them
because they're nerdy. None of them realise she's not interested because
they're assholes.
Champ is a product of the town. He's not progressive by any means, but it's in
a naive sort of way. When Waverly gets talking about feminism, he just smiles
and says something about how smart she is, and contributes nothing. It's better
than she gets from the boys who try to argue with her about 'egalitarianism'.
Much better.
He’s a good person, at the core. All the rest isn’t even his fault.
Somewhere along the way, Waverly starts to believe it’s herwho doesn’t deserve
him.
///
The truck never really feels like hers. Wynonna is so potent that everything
she touches is marked forever, and Waverly can’t get the scent out. Whenever
she drives she feels a ghost in the passenger side, phantom ache between her
legs.
She sells it for half what it’s worth.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Chapter Notes
     hi im the king of wildy varying chapter length. honestly none of this
     is edited and im probably going to edit this when its finished and
     reupload with like... only 3 chapters than are each about 8k words
     instead of smaller ones of varying length.
She’s the Prom Queen and he’s her King; it’s just a perfect fucking picture.
Literally. Gus and Curtis take photos like it’s going of fashion. Against his
truck, in the stairwell, during the day and during sundown and in the
manufactured darkness of the barn. It’s a whole production.
The party is nice enough, but the after party is where it’s at. The graduating
class all pooled their money together and rented out a warehouse, bought
drinks. Waverly hasn’t been to a party like this since… well, since. At least
it’s not so goddamn cold this time. At least they’re inside.
Champ drinks more than he should under the encouragement of ‘his boys’. Waverly
doesn’t have the energy to keep up with the harder drinks, and she doesn’t feel
like pretending she enjoys the taste of beer. They bow out, together, at about
two am. Champ rented a hotel room for the both of them. He gets clapped on the
back as they leave.
After sex, Champ passes out quickly and completely. Waverly lies on her back,
staring at the ceiling, for an hour.
///
Her phone wakes her up. She reaches for it out of reflex, figuring it’s the
alarm at first, but no, she hasn’t needed to use an alarm for years.
It’s a call. The brightness hurts her eyes as she lifts the phone to check the
name.
     WYNONNA.
Waverly sits up and out of the bed, leaving Champ in his own sweat and body
heat. She waits until she’s in the bathroom to answer it.
“Wynonna?”
“Waves,” there’s a lot of background noise; Wynonna’s at a party.
“Jesus, Wy, it’s…“ Waverly lifts the phone away to check, “Three o’clock in the
morning.”
“Oh, shit,” Wynonna laughs, “Sorry, its 11 o’clock here.”
“Here?” Waverly asks. Wynonna was in California, last she knew. “Where the hell
are you?”
“Overseas,” Wynonna says, “So this is a fucking expensive call to make.”
“Why are you calling?” Waverly asks. It’s been months since she’s heard her
voice. Years, maybe. They text sometimes, but it’s not nearly the same thing.
Wynonna breathes heavily on the other side of the line. “You look so fucking
hot.”
Waverly nearly drops the phone in the sink. She pulls it away for a second to
listen for any indication that Champ's waking up. There's nothing. She holds
onto the sinks rim.
"This is a phone call, Wynonna. You can't see me."
"Gus sent pictures. You with Champ. I think she was trying to make me feel
guilty, you know, for missing it-"
Wynonna pulled the phone away, held it against her temple.
"All it did was make me..." Jealous. Enraged. Infuriated. I'm stewing in all of
itand I'm coming back for you and I'm gonna- "Horny."
Wynonna is drunk; she sounds drunk, but that might just be how she sounds, now.
"You said it's eleven." Waverly thinks back to her geography classes, a map of
the world divided into sector. "AM or PM?"
"In the morning."
"Jesus, isn't that a bit early to be wasted?"
She can almost hear Wynonna shrug through the line.
"Hey, day drinking is cool here."
Waverly figures that puts Wynonna somewhere in line with Britain, maybe a bit
more East. She'll look up the phone call's area code later. Gus hadn't
mentioned anything about Wynonna going overseas. Did she even know?
"You look perfect, baby girl," It's the kind of compliment that, were it not
for the context, could have actually been nice.
"And that dress..."
Waverly's naked now, crossing one arm over herself even though no one can see
her.
"Why are you still with him?"
"He's a good guy."
"I never got that, why... You could have anyone. Anything."
"He's a good guy," Waverly said, "And he loves me."
"Do you love him?"
Wynonna waits for the answer. Gets ready for it to kill her.
Waverly sighs.
"He's a good guy."
"Does you make you cum?"
"Wynonna!"
That was almost too loud. Waverly heart jumps as she listens again... that
must've woken someone. The neighbours, even.
"You deserve someone who's good like that. You look so good when you get off.
Has he even ever seen you get off? Were you faking?"
Waverly can't do this. She knows what Wynonna wants, but she's not about to
have phone sex while her boyfriend is passed out in the other room. She
wouldn't know how to, even if she wanted to.
Shedoes want to.
She wishes she'd drunk more.
"I wanna go down on you," Wynonna says.
Waverly's breathes hitches, and her protest just comes out as a whimper.
"I'm good now, I've had practice. However long it took. I'd work you over with
my mouth until you were so messy. I'd make you feel so good, baby."
"Champ's still-"
"Fuck Champ," the mention of him throws off her beat. Wynonna takes another sip
of her drink. She has to stay just this drunk, has to keep herself just this
crazy. Any more or any less and she can't go through with it, "I'd make you
forget all about him. Lay you down on my bed and open you up."
"Stop," Waverly says, "I'll hang up. I will."
Wynonna is quiet.
"You can't do this. You can't just call after a year and-" Waverly rubs the
bridge of her nose, "Not on the phone, Wynonna."
"Not on the..." Waverly waits for the gears in Wynonna's head to click into
place. It's quiet; there's not a sound in the hotel room, the closest noise is
on the street and it's only periodic. When Wynonna speaks again, Waverly can
hear the tears in her voice. "I miss you so much."
"Come back, then," Waverly says, "You can come back. There's nothing stopping
you."
"I can't, Waves, everyone hates me. You should hate me."
"I don't. It doesn't matter," she can't deny that everyone hates her. A lie to
placate her like that would do much more harm than good.  Waverly makes her
voice sweet. It's manipulative, maybe. She doesn't care. "Don't you wanna see
me?"
"You know I do."
"So?"
"So. There's a reason I left."
Waverly turns the tap on and plugs the sink. She lets it fill up, let's the
sound of the water running fill the bathroom. Even if Champ wakes, he won't
hear what she's saying.
"Come back and you can have sex with me." Waverly bites her bottom lips, drag
her foot across the tile while she waits for the response. It's a risky thing
to say.
"That's... that's the reason I left."
Waverly almost hangs up then. They're going in circles.
"Decide what you want," she shuts the tap off, pulls out the plug and watches
the water drain, "And do something about it."
"Waverly, I-"
Waverly hangs up.
///
Booking a ticket on such short notice is fucking expensive, and she has to sit
in the middle of the row in economy class, but Wynonna gets there three days
later. She lands at the nearest airport, almost three hours out from the city
limits, and realises she has no plans for anyone to pick her up. It's only
12am; Waverly would still be in school. Gus and Curtis both work. They don't
have time, and this time around, she doesn't have a car.
Bus it is. Wynonna's glad she didn't bring too much baggage along.
The homestead is empty when she gets there. She knocks and waits for a a half
hour before she decides to let herself in. She still knows where they keep the
spare key hidden.
Going through the house feels a little bit like archaeology. Inspecting relics,
trying to piece together what's happened. She's been out of Waverly's life for
so long, out of her real life, and all she's had are bits and pieces amended
onto an out of date image. She images Waverly in the kitchen - what does she
eat? What food does she hate? Does she cook? - And feels an ache somewhere
below her lungs for an alternate timeline. In one world, they stayed together,
had dinners, were a family. In one world, Wynonna has a seat at the table.
Curtis comes home first and invites her to stay at the homestead with them for
however long she's here. Gus isn't too pleased with it, but she also really
doesn't want to make a scene, so she keeps her mouth shut on the matter.
Wynonna tosses her bags down next to a couch in the living room, and pulls out
her phone. She doesn't have much to say to either of them. Certainly nothing
that wouldn't disappoint them further. She plays Temple
Run for about half an hour until she hears the door creak open. Waverly's home.
Gus and Curtis get the door first. She can hear them trying to stall her, or
trying to prepare her, maybe. Waverly muscles her way past them to see what
they're so obviously trying to hide.
"You actually came," is the first thing she says. She wonders how that much
sounds, out of context. Gus and Curtis must be confused by how utterly un-
shocked Waverly seems.
"I did," Wynonna says. Waverly had her hair put back in a single loose, thick
braid. The shirt she's wearing cuts off just before her navel, and Wynonna has
to force a mantra to stop herself from looking.
It's hard to talk to Waverly when Gus and Curtis are still there. The most
pressing matters, the whole reason she came back, they can't discuss yet. It's
a minefield of half metaphors and pleasantries. Wynonna isn't looking forward
to dinner.
///
Wynonna looks at her and thinks about sex, but she’ll never ask for it. She
used up all her bravado getting on that plane.
Waverly waits until Wynonna is half way through a six pack - just loose enough
to let Waverly join her – and convinces her to switch to something harder. The
whiskey is way too much for her, and when Waverly chokes on it and spits it
out, Wynonna laughs.
Gus and Curtis are both out of the house. It's the first time they've been
alone together since she arrived, the first time in three years. And before
that, it'd been three years too. This only seems to happen at extreme
intervals, so much contact, so much heat, and then nothing for years. Waverly
wonders how long it'll be this time.
"Think this is a bit too hard for you, kiddo," Wynonna takes the bottle away
from her, "Besides, you need to sober up before Gus and Curtis get back. They
already think I'm the worst influence on God's green earth. Don't need to prove
them right."
"I'm an adult. I can make my own decisions. They can't blame you for that,"
Waverly reaches for the bottle. It's much stronger than what she's had before,
and somehow that actually makes it more palatable. Waverly finds that she
doesn't mind the taste.
"Ah, but they can." Wynonna's arms and longer, and she's stronger. Waverly's
got no chance of getting it, unless Wynonna offers it to her.
Waverly notices the label for the first time. She hadn't cared to check before
her first sip, but the way Wynonna held it exposed the full print.
"That's familiar," Waverly says, "...did-"
"Daddy used to drink it, yeah."
Wynonna sets the bottle down like it's suddenly too heavy to hold. Waverly
doesn't try to grab it.
It's a painful reminder - who they are, who their father is. The heritage that
makes all of this so much more complicated. Wynonna wants to reach for the
bottle again but they've both been staring at it too long, and taking another
sip would be making it statement right now.
Waverly decides she doesn't need the drink. Wynonna's right, anyway; Gus and
Curtis wouldn't be happy if they found out she'd been drinking. It wouldn't
play well for Wynonna, either.
The sun is just starting to go down and there's a coyote screaming somewhere
out in the wilds. The heating is on and for now, she's safe. They're safe in
here. Waverly tells herself that again and again, and then she puts a hand on
the far side of Wynonna's face in a motion that can only mean one thing.
"I promised you something," she says, "If you came back."
"You don't have to," Wynonna says. It's an out she has to give. She hopes
Waverly doesn't take it.
"I promised you sex," Waverly turns Wynonna's face, makes their eyes lock,
"Don't make a liar out of me."
Wynonna's eyes go to her lips but they're moving too fast for her to get a
clear view. The second their lips touch, Wynonna's eyes close, and her hands go
to Waverly's hips. Waverly is smaller and uses it to her advantage; she
clambers over the couch and holds herself over Wynonna, making use of all that
agility and not breaking their lips apart once.
"When are they coming back?" Wynonna asks.
"We have enough time."
"When?"
"Two hours."
“Let’s go upstairs,” Wynonna says. She leaves the bottle on the coffee table.
///
She hasn’t ever actually been insideWaverly’s room. Odd, given that she’s been
insideWaverly. There are only a few things she recognizes – a blanket, a clock,
a few relics of toys – the rest is all new to her. Wynonna takes in the posters
on the walls, wonders why Waverly got each one. What the mean to her. If
there’s a reason she has the curtains just that way, or if it’s just how they
are.
Waverly takes her shirt off, tosses it onto the floor.
Her bra is cute, but clearly not meant to seduce. She hadn't been expecting
this. Hadn't prepared. Wynonna doesn't mind at all. Waverly puts both her hands
behind her back, shifts while Wynonna looks at her. She seems a bit unsteady,
and it takes Wynonna way too long to realise that she's nervous.
"You alright?" Wynonna asks. She steps close enough that their chests are
almost touching, or would be if they were the same height.
"Y-yeah," Goosebumps raise on Waverly's arms. It might be from the cold. It
might not.
"You seem tense."
"Well, yeah."
"We don't have to."
"Shut up, that's not why."
"Why, then?"
Waverly scrunches up her mouth, gestures down at her body.
"Just, you know. Before. You never actually saw me naked."
Wynonna's eyes flick to the left as she recalls the memory.
"Huh. Yeah," she says. Actually, Wynonna doesn't think she can remember ever
seeing Waverly naked in her life. She probably did, when they were kids, but
she lost a lot of memory from before the attack. Wynonna had idea what she
might be repressing. "Your body's perfect," Wynonna traces the back of her hand
down Waverly's arm, enjoying the way the soft short hairs tickle just a bit.
"You wanna lie down?" Wynonna asks. Wordless, Waverly backs up until the back
of her knees hits the mattress. She sits down with more grace than she has a
right to have.
Wynonna shrugs off her jacket, eyes stuck on Waverly. She hangs it over the
back of Waverly's desk chairs, notices the algebra text book opened up. Wynonna
doesn't understand any of it. Waverly has a page of notes and a pen abandoned
next to it.
"AP classes?"
Waverly nods, "Yeah. It's a lot of work but...it's good."
"God, I barely got my GED."
Wynonna resists the urge to check that the door is locked again. It's a long,
quiet driveway, and they'd hear anyone coming up with plenty of time to right
themselves. Wynonna pushes Waverly's chair in, and kicks unzips the sides of
her boots to take them off.
Waverly watches all of this with her hands neatly folded in her lap. Her hands
ache to fiddle with something - like the hem on her shirt - but that's already
gone. She follows Wynonna's lead and starts to unlace her Converse. No shoes on
the bed.
When Waverly looks back up, Wynonna has her fists balled up at her sides. She's
just outside of Waverly's circle, looking uncertain. They're circling each
other with their eyes, both unsure who's supposed to go first.
"Come here," Waverly pats the space on the bed beside her, and Wynonna follows.
The bed shifts and forces them closer together. Wynonna swallows, and Waverly
takes one of her hands. For a second, she just holds it in her. Then she lays
it flat on her stomach.
"You can touch," Waverly says, "I'm not gonna burn you."
"No?" Wynonna curls just the tips in, and slides down, softly raking across her
abdomen, "You are pretty hot."
Waverly starts to laugh and Wynonna swallows it with a kiss. Her hand, still on
Waverly's abdomen, changes directions, starts heading up.
"Lay back," Wynonna takes Waverly down with her until they're both on their
sides, facing each other. Her hand keep snaking up until it's cupping Waverly's
left breast, thumb rolling across in a pleasing motion over where Wynonna
figures her nipple must be.
"Wanna take this off?" Wynonna sucks her bottom lip in and when Waverly nods,
reached around to undo it. It comes off a bit awkward, and Waverly almost
smacks her in the face with her elbow, but they avoid any actual injuries.
As soon as it's off and on the floor, Wynonna stares. Waverly's breasts are
perfect, fucking perfect, just like she knew they would be. Wynonna stares for
so long that Waverly starts to shrink under it, wants to move an arm over to
cover herself. Wynonna grabs her arm, softly but firmly, by the wrist.
"No, please," Wynonna says, "I mean, if you want you can but. Jesus. You must
know they're perfect."
Waverly shrugs. Wynonna can't find it in herself to make eye contact.
"Champ doesn't tell you?"
It hurts for Wynonna to mention him, but she feels like it's something she has
to do. A tax she has to pay. This has to hurt her, just a little.
"Champ's not much of a talker," Waverly exhales heavily and the motion rolls
through her whole body, and Wynonna feels it in her hand. "But he has told me I
have a great rack."
"Might be the only thing he's right about," Wynonna says. She puts her hand
back where it was, cupping Waverly, and starts the same motion. It has a much
more noticeable effect. Wynonna can feel her nipple harden under her thumb and
flicks her vision between Waverly's chest and Waverly's face. She can't decide
which one she likes more.
"Is this good?"
Waverly nods. She closes her eyes while Wynonna continues and then switches to
her other nipple, doing the same thing.
"Can I do something else?"
Waverly opens her eyes to find Wynonna's pupils blown way out, lips looking
redder than they normally do, full blush across her face.
"G-go ahead."
Wynonna dips her head down lower, and Waverly is confused for a second -
thinking she's going to kiss her neck - until she feels something wet around
her nipple.
"O-oh," she says, and one hand goes to the back of Wynonna's head. Wynonna lips
and sucks and bites in alternation, trying to figure out which Waverly likes
best. She pulls back with a wet sound, and check's Waverly's face to make sure
she likes it. She does. She goes the same to the other one, while using her
fingers on the first.
"That's- ah- good," Waverly feels it down in her core. Champ's never done this.
When he does take the time for foreplay, it's clumsy. It's not that he doesn't
care, it's just that he's not very good at it. She supposes that shouldn't be a
surprise; Wynonna's had more experience, and she's more familiar with the
equipment. Something like a small, light vibration starts just under her navel
and Waverly just knows that she want's Wynonna there. She guides Wynonna's hand
down while her mouth is still busy, and Wynonna has no problem taking the hint.
She undoes the button on Waverly’s pants with one hand and opens it just wide
enough to get her hand in.
She's a little surprised to find that Waverly's shaved - she wasn't last time -
but she doesn't want think about whether that was to accommodate Champ's
preferences.
"Hang on."
Wynonna stops her movements, ready to withdraw. Waverly is entitled to second
thoughts.
"I just, we have time. Not like... the other time. We should, you know. Get
undressed."
"Oh, yeah, okay," Wynonna is more relieved that she'd like to admit. She sits
up on her knees and lifts her shirt up and off, tossing it to join Waverly's on
the floor. Her bra is black, simple. She's more used to people looking at her
than Waverly is. She doesn't shy away when Waverly watches. Wynonna undoes her
own bra because Waverly doesn't offer to take it off first, and that, too, goes
the direction of the floor.
"Need help?" Wynonna points at the undone button on Waverly's pants, "Or am I
just that distracting?"
Waverly sits up quickly, almost knocking Wynonna off her balance in the
process. The bed isn't that big, and neither of them have a complete range of
motion. Waverly's focus is split between watching Wynonna and taking off her
own clothes, but she ends up having to look away for half a minute while
Wynonna strips. She kicks her short off all the way and when she looks back,
Wynonna is already naked.
They lie back down on the bed, and Wynonna slips her fingers under the
waistband of Waverly's underwear and starts pulls them down. Waverly's things
are pale and thin and utterly unbroken by lines of scars. Wynonna would be
jealous if she weren't so turned on.
They peel off and Wynonna can tell by them sticking that Waverly is already
wet. When they're off, she puts her fingers back, and confirms it. She tells
Waverly as much.
"You're so wet, babygirl. All wet and ready for me."
Waverly nods against her shoulder. Wynonna's saliva is still on her nipples,
making them more sensitive to ever cold wind that blows through from the half
open windows.
"I've never felt..."
"Never felt what?"
"This... excited," Waverly breathes it out and on the last syllable, Wynonna
slips two fingers inside her. She sees pleasure open up on Waverly's face,
first it tightens, then it smoothes out.
"More?" Wynonna pushes in deeper and Waverly helps, pushing her hips into
Wynonna's hand. Wynonna's fingers are long and when she's inside she doesn't
have trouble reaching what she needs to reach. She curls her fingers up,
pushing on Waverly's front wall and pulling down. Waverly shudders.
“Please, Daddy.”
Wynonna freezes. Waverly, too.
“D-daddy?”
“You are sonot in a position to judge, Wynonna.” The blur of pleasure is still
there in Waverly’s voice, but the way she’d sounded almost lost in it… that was
fading fast. There was a bite. An edge.
Wynonna shakes her head.
“No judging,”
Wynonna says. She catches Waverly's eyes, sees that she's still unsure. Wynonna
forces herself to pick up the slack for both of them. "Let Daddy make you feel
good, baby."
Waverly visibly relaxes.
Wynonna can feel it too. The vice grip around her fingers loosens up just a
little, and she can move again, easier. She keeps the motion, stroking her from
the side. She aligns the side of her hand to Waverly's clit.
"Grind on me, baby, if you want to."
"Okay, Daddy." Waverly pushes down as best as she can, and Wynonna adjusts her
angle so she can make better contact.
"Do you want another finger?"
"Yeah."
Wynonna adds one and stretches all three out inside of her. Not nearly enough
to be painful, just enough to give an odd, pleasant feeling.
"Uh- you ah- you got better at this." Waverly says.
"What, you saying I was bad before?"
"Not at all," Waverly smile-gasps through another wave of pleasure, "Just that
you're really good now."
Wynonna isn't a good enough person to not let that go to her ego.
"I still have those pants," Wynonna says, "The ones you came all over.
Remember?"
Of course she remembers. Of course. She'd thought about it every day, revisited
that ground so often that she's worn a path to it. Waverly could be asleep for
forty years and still remember it when she awoke.
"That was hot..." Waverly sounds a million miles away, and when Wynonna catches
her eyes they look distant, glazed over. Not necessarily in the fun way.
"Do you regret it?" The words slip out ebfore Wynonna can stop them, and she
wishes she could take them back. Waverly looked surprised, then puzzled.
Then... tired.
"God, Wynonna. You have no sense of appropriate timing."
"Yeah, well. I've been told it's charming."
"You don't have to charm me. You already got me into bed."
"Do you, though?"
Waverly rolls a little more onto her back. Wynonna's fingers are still inside
her, but they've stopped moving.
"Just fuck me." Waverly surges forward, takes control of the action all at
once. Her hips are doing most of the movement, and it takes Wynonna's hands a
while to catch up. She almost doesn't have the dexterity.
"Can you get off like this?" Wynonna asks.
"Dunno," Waverly says, "I'm close but... every time you stop I lose it."
"What do you need, baby girl? Tell me. I'll do anything. I'll do anything."
Wynonna's breathe on her neck feels unnaturally hot.
"On the phone, you said... you said you wanted to... with your mouth."
"I wanted to go down on you."
"Yeah."
"Okay," Wynonna withdraws her fingers. They're coated with Waverly's wetness,
and she wipes most of it down on her thighs. What's left she brings up to her
mouth and licks. She offers her fingers to Waverly, letting her taste herself.
Watching Waverly part her lips, watching them close around her fingers and take
her in... Wynonna isn't sure if there's such a thing as a lip kink, but she's
fairly certain she has one.
She withdraws her fingers, wet with saliva and other things, and stars to trace
them down Waverly's body. Her mouth follows the same trail. Starting at the
mouth, kissing down the neck, between her breasts. She pauses at Waverly’s
navel to dip her tongue in it for a second and sees how Waverly twitches with
it, watches how her muscles move. She's never seen Waverly from the angle
before, and it's fascinating as it is arousing. All the lines that define her
body are more evident, pronounced by shadow.
Lower, lower, until she gets her mouth where she needs it. Looking up, Waverly
is looking at the ceiling. Wynonna can't get eye contact. That's okay. She puts
her head down and kisses the high inside of each of her thighs. Then between
them.
It's just closed mouth first, just teasing. Waverly tries to bring her hips up,
asking for more. Wynonna darts out her tongue and licks down, fully, once.
"God, yes, Daddy."
Wynonna repeats the motions, goes harder each time. One of Waverly's hands
works it's way into her hair, buries between her locks. Wynonna doesn't even
need the encouragement, but she laps it up. She pays attention to Waverly's
clit - sucks and bites at it through her lips so it doesn't hurt - and Waverly
is coming undone fast. She slides one hands around from under Waverly's leg and
adds her fingers in, pushing inside of her while her mouth is still working.
"Oh god, I'm so close, I'm-"
Wynonna pulls her mouth away and Waverly whines.
"Cum, baby. Cum for Daddy."
Wynonna gets Waverly to nod before she puts her head back down. She's moving
with a singular goal; the get Waverly off. None of the motions are hesitant, or
controlled, even. It's all full pressure, full contact, there's no need for
them to be quiet, no need to restrict movement, no need to be quiet, the house
is empty, no-one can hear for miles and they're fine and Waverly moans so loud
that she cums that Wynonna feels embarrassedby just how lewd it is.
She pulls her face up, shiny and sticky, and kisses her way back up. Waverly,
passive, lets herself be kissed. She's tired. She's happy to just lie there.
The bed is messed up, pillows and extra blankets all cast on the floor.
Wynonna doesn’t ask her to reciprocate.
“I’m gonna go get a beer,” Wynonna says. She slips her shirt back on, only her
shirt, and leaves Waverly alone.
///
"Is that what this is about?" Wynonna takes a deep sip from the half empty can.
Waverly hasn't gotten fully redressed; her pants are back on but she got
distracted half way through, so her shirt's still lying on the floor somewhere.
Waverly makes a tired huh? Noise.
"The daddy thing," Wynonna explains, "Is that why we're... you miss daddy, is
that it? And this is... this is because of that?"
Waverly forces herself to sit up. Apparently this is a conversation Wynonna is
intent on having, no matter how much she'd like to just lay and rest with her.
"No, Wynonna," she says, "It's not that deep. I just like it."
"You just..." Wynonna waves a hand in the air between the two of them, "...
like it?"
Waverly shrugs.
"I think it's hot. It's not that deep."
Waverly grabs Wynonna's beer and takes a sip from it. She cringes a bit at the
taste. Every single time she tries beer, she convinces herself that it can't be
that bad. That she'd imagined it last time, or that it was just the brand.
Every single time, she'd wrong.
"Why? Do you want me to stop?"
Wynonna stops tapping on Waverly's thigh. She hadn't even noticed she'd been
doing it."
"...no."
"Does it make you uncomfortable?"
Wynonna throws her neck back, chuckles in the direction of the ceiling.
"Does it make me uncomfortable?"
Waverly nods, sheepish.
"Jesus."
///
***** Chapter 4 *****
Chapter Notes
     imagine an alternate universe where i actually edit this and it isnt
     just Entirely fucking full of typos and also the chapters area
     remotely similar length? it's just not realistic. anyway thanks for
     bearing through this; once the first draft is done i will go back and
     edit and reupload a better version with better seperated chapters.
     also this chapter is long as fuck lmao good luck
Waverly's expertise at scheduling - that she'd developed because of her AP
classes - becomes handy in a way she hadn't ever anticipated. She and Wynonna
track out the movements for everyone who comes and goes to the house, and work
out exactly when and where they can have sex. Gus is reliable, most of the
time. Curtis is harder. Waverly's bedroom door lock breaks one night and they
decide that the homestead is just too risky a place.
Wynonna's the one who suggests borrowing Curtis' truck. It's weird; Waverly
notes the irony in here trying to find times and places to have sex with her
sister, but drawing the line at doing it in her uncle's truck. Wynonna
convinces her. With tongue.
When she offers to pick Waverly up from school, she tries to play it off like
it's a chore that she's just doing to keep them happy. Gus and Curtis both seem
happy with it, especially since the Winter is setting in and they don't like
the idea of Waverly getting caught out in a snow storm.
Every day, after school, Wynonna waits in the single furthest parking space
from the entrance. She doesn't want to see or be seen, even though this part of
the journey is fairly innocent.
Waverly hops in beside her, and Wynonna lets her dictate the radio station.
They hardly speak until they're out of the parking lot, down the street, onto
one of the quieter roads. Sometimes Wynonna asks about school, but that also
reminds her just how young Waverly still is.
They drive way out of town. They've been back to the Panorama a few times, but
after the local council added in benches and real parking spots and a barbeque
area, it's much less secluded than it used to be.
Wynonna takes the truck down a thin street, which turns into a dirt path, and
banks left and off-road. She drives until the trees are thick enough around
them, parks, waits until the car shudders to a complete stop.
In a certain way, for Wynonna, it's exciting. She remembers having to sneak off
to have sex when she was a teenager. She wonders where Waverly and Champ-
Waverly sees the thought cross Wynonna's face like a shadow. She climbs over to
the Wynonna's side and kisses her through it, until she lets the question go.
Until she lets everything go.
The sun is just about to begin its final descent for the day. It's the longest
they've ever been out. In ten more minutes they'll be late for dinner.
"You told Gus and Curtis you were gonna be late, right?"
Waverly nods. "Told them I was at Champ's."
“Good. I wanna go down on you.”
///
Champ comes up the driveway a bit too fast and parks his car outside the
homestead. He rushes over to the door, a mixture of anxious and already angry
at what he suspects he'll find. He knocks on the door and Curtis answers.
"Good afternoon, sir," He says, and remembers that probably should have tucked
his shirt in. Or smoothed his hair.
"Champ," Curtis steps back to allow him in, but Champ shakes his head.
"Oh no, that's alright sir," he puts on his best Boy Scout smile, "I was just
wondering if Waverly was home? I'd like to give her something."
Curtis crosses his arms. He eyebrows, already dangerous close to becoming one,
knot together in the middle. He looks at Champ like he can't understand what
he's seeing.
"Sir?"
"Waverly said she was at your house."
Champ hides his anger well, but he's already starting to plot. He didn't pay
attention to a lot of things in school but Waverly's body was his favourite
subject, and he'd been noticing things. Hickey's he didn't recognise, that he
was sure couldn't be his doing. He's brought it up to Waverly once, but her
explanations didn't make sense with the placement. How could a fall leave a
mark so small and perfectly circular in shape?
"Well, she's not." Champ says.
Curtis grinds his teeth together. He needs to get Champ out the door so he can
think.
"I'll... find out where she is," He says, "Wynonna was picking her up from
school."
"Wynonna's back?" Champ's focus sharply pivots.
Waverly's never told him that much about her, but he knows about as much as
anyone in town does. The kind of trouble she gets into. That she's a bad
influence. Champ starts imagining all different kinds of reasons for those
bruises. He tries to picture Waverly getting into a fight. Loosinga fight. His
priorities shift very quickly.
"Is she safe? I can go to the police station on the way back."
"I..." Curtis draws the sound out. He suspects drugs. Or drinking. He doesn't
want Waverly in that kind of situation but he doesn't want the police involved
either; with the police comes complications. Child services, maybe. Waverly had
just turned eighteen but she was still in high school, and he didn't need the
whole town suddenly talking about whether or not he was a fit guardian.
And there was prison, too. Wynonna he wasn't worried about. Waverly wouldn't
make it an hour.
"Just give me a minute, son. I'll find out what's happening, I'm sure it's
just-"
Curtis stops talking when he sees the headlights coming down the road. The
sun's all but set and it would be hard to make out details, except that he
could recognise his own truck anywhere.
"There they are," he points, and Champ follows it.
Wynonna and Waverly turn up the driveway just then.  Waverly looks up from her
phone a second later and sees Champ and Curtis talking.
"Fuck," Waverly says. Wynonna recoils. She realises she hasn't heard Waverly
swear outside of sex, maybe ever.
Waverly knows they’re in trouble. Champ was her alibi, and here he is, in the
perfect position to deny it.
They pull up next to Champ's truck, and all eyes are on them. Waverly's the
first one to leave the safe bubble of the truck. Wynonna grins despite herself;
Waverly's always been the braver, the more prepared.
Wynonna's hands shake as she grabs the handle. She's a good liar, but Curtis is
a hard man to fool.
"Waverly, baby, there you are-" Champ rushes over and gathers Waverly in his
arms, and Wynonna feels a sick sort of smug satisfaction at knowing that she
had Waverly cumming on her hand a half hour ago. Waverly's busy with Champ, so
Wynonna faces Curtis.
"Hey," she says, giving a stupid smile that Curtis in no way returns.
"You're late." He says.
"Yeah," Wynonna says, "Sorry."
She doesn't offer an explanation yet, doesn't want to until more cards are on
the table. If by some weird chance his conversation with Champ didn't involve
the subject of Waverly, they might still be safe. But that's fucking unlikely.
"Where were you?"
"We...uhh..." Waverly sees Wynonna struggling, and breaks away from Champ with
a string of reassurances that she's fine.
"It's my fault," Waverly says, “I wanted to get a book from the library but
they didn't have it at that branch. I made Wynonna drive me to the next one."
Curtis looks between the two of them. He doesn't trust Wynonna as far as he can
throw her, but Waverly's a different story. He taps his foot.
"Why'd you say you were at Champ's house?"
"Cause that was the plan. I was gonna get the book and go over there. I shoulda
told you it changed. Sorry."
Waverly looks over at Champ, "Sorry, Champ."
Champ's already forgiven her. He comes over and puts an arm around her
shoulders, pulls her in close. Wynonna is seething, and hopes ti doesn't show
on his face.
"Well, alright," Curtis says, "You'd better come in. Champ, you staying for
dinner?"
"I'd love to, sir."
Waverly and Champ hold hands as they walk inside.
Wynonna tries to follow, but Curtis stops her with a hand infront of her body.
"What's the book?" he asks her.
"Huh?"
"The book Waverly got. What's it called?"
"I... I dunno," Wynonna says, "I didn't check. Ask her."
"Well where is it? She didn't take it in with her."
"In her bag," Wynonna points over her shoulder, "Still in the truck."
Wynonna swallows. If Curtis checks... well, then they've got no back up lie.
Not a single out left. She tries to keep her face calm and steady, not giving
him a reason to be suspicious. He steps away from her and her heart drops when
he walks in the direction of the truck.
"Curtis, Wynonna, get in here!" Gus's voice rings out from inside the house,
"Food's getting cold."
Curtis stops walking. He gives Wynonna a look that says they aren't finished.
Wynonna waits until she's sure he's far away enough not to hear before letting
herself sigh in relief.
Talk about saved by the bell.  Wynonna hopes he’ll let this go.
///
He doesn’t.
///
“Champ thinks I'm cheating on him.”
Waverly's sitting in the driver's seat with the door open and Wynonna's jacket
draped over her shoulders. Wynonna's out of the car, smoking by the tree line
so the smell doesn't get in the truck. Or the jacket.
Wynonna takes the cigarette out of her mouth and raises an one eyebrow. She
decides it's not enough, and raises two.
"Youare cheating on him."
Wynonna takes another drag and it hits her a bit too hard. She coughs and tries
to recover smoothly. In high school, that kind of weakness would've gotten her
ridicule. The fact that it was menthol, on top of that, would basically warrant
an exile.
Waverly doesn't even seem to notice.
"God, don't remind me."
Wynonna tosses the butt onto the ground and steps it out. It stains the icy
ground around it black.
"You reminded yourself." Wynonna approaches the truck and Waverly shifts back
to her own seat.
She offers Wynonna her jacket back.
"Keep it. It's getting cold."
"And you don't get cold?"
"You're smaller. Less body heat."
Wynonna gets into the truck and closes the door.
"Do they like him?" Wynonna asks, “Champ?”
Waverly shrugs.
"As much as they could like anyone I'm dating."
Wynonna's whole body feels a bit heavy from the nicotine, and she can't seem to
hold her head in a way that's comfortable. Her hair feels like it's weighted
wrong.
"Is that... what this is?" Waverly's fiddling with one of the knobs on the
radio even though there isn't any power.
"Huh?" Wynonna asks.
"Are we... dating?"
Wynonna opens her mouth, let's out an empty breathing sound.
"You wanna talk about this now?"
"Well..." Waverly rolls her shoulders back, "I was just. I don't know. I think
about it, you know. A lot."
"Yeah, me too."
"Like... I won't be angry with whatever you say; I just wanna know what you
think. Like is this..." Waverly gestures between the two of them, "Is this just
sex, or-"
Wynonna snorts. "God, Waverly. You make it sound so normal. How could I be
having'just sex' with me sister."
Wynonna sees the way the words land on Waverly. Harsh, like a punch to the gut.
It's not something they talk about, the sister thing. They hadn't even talked
about not talking about it, they'd just developed a system where they didn't
acknowledge it while they were together like that. No mentions of their
parents, of their shared history, of memories from the brief time when their
childhoods were actually intertwined in a normal way. Just two people.
Just sex?
Wynonna's insides felt tight at the thought. Calling it that felt so -
reductionist, simplistic - wrong that even Wynonna, with her proud history of
repression an unhealthy coping mechanisms, thought it was improper. Vulgar.
Stupid, for both of them, if it was true.
Who would risk this much,ruin this much, just for sex? She knows that’s
probably what Waverly was expecting to hear, even if she knew it wasn’t true.
Wynonna had put a lot of effort into the personalities she put out. People take
one look at what she’s wearing and think they know her. They see her leathers
jackets, dark clothes, and assume she’d describe herself as ‘not the girlfriend
type’. Wynonna’s not exactly sure when that assumption started to offend her,
but it does. She’s not above love. This is just… messy.
"I don't... what else can it be, baby girl?" Wynonna throws the pet name in to
make it easier for Waverly. This is hard for both of them to talk about, and
Waverly always seems to relax when Wynonna says it.
"I mean, we can't... we can't be a couple. Not like normal. We can't-" Wynonna
wipes at her forehead, which is suddenly feeling much sweatier than it should
in the cold weather, “We can't, you know. Live together. Maybe for a bit but...
I mean, people would think it's weird. And then there's Champ, you know, and
what about if, when, he proposes."
Waverly puts a hand on Wynonna's back, rubs it in a circle.
"That's... you can't give up on that. Even if it's not with Champ. And God, I
hope it isn't, I still think he's an idiot," Wynonna exhales with a sarcastic
laugh, "Jesus.  I can't believe I'm jealous of fucking Champ."
"It's not the same with him," Waverly says, "You know that, Wynonna. He doesn't
make me feel like you do."
"I can't give you what he can." Wynonna looks straight ahead, toward the tree
line. She can't face Waverly, "I can't take you on dates, I can't give you a
home, or-or... I don't know, fuck, a family? Do you even want that? I don't
know, it doesn't matter.”
Waverly’s hand on her back feels patronizing. Wynonna moves forward so Waverly
drops it.
“What would be do, Wave? We can't get married. We can't have kids. I can't even
hold your hand in public. I have to drive into the middle of the fucking frozen
tundra just to kiss you."
Wynonna gets more animated. She starts talking with her hands, getting louder
and louder. Waverly shrinks further into her side as Wynonna's presence seems
to flood the space, before she stills, and Waverly can’t read her expression.
"Maybe I don't care about that."
Wynonna doesn't even hear what she says. Her eyes are flicking back and forth
between points that aren't either here or there. She's thinking, she's
thinking.... about everything she just told Waverly, about what she can't give
her, what they can't have, and she's trying to place just what exactly that
ache in her chest is.
"Waverly, I just realised, just then-" her voice is far away, like it's coming
from outside of the car, being spoken through the glass, "Just when I was
talking about... about those things."
"What?"
The images in Wynonna's mind are all tinted in gold. An impossible future where
the light is always perfect. Waking with Waverly, breakfast with Waverly,
watching rings, a fucking minivan. Wynonna sees it all and let's each image
take a bit of her with it.
"I think I'm... I think I'm in love with you," Wynonna half whispers it and
leans forward in her seat, her eyes narrowed like the answer is written
somewhere in the fogged up windscreen.
"Wynonna, I lo-"
"No!" Wynonna snaps out of her wonder very quickly, all but slaps a hand over
Waverly's mouth. "No, don't say it back."
"Why not?"
"Because then we'd have to do something about it."
"We have options. We could leave Purgatory. One of us changes our name. Maybe
we both do."
"Stop it."
"Why?"
"Because it's not happening."
"Why not?"
"You really like asking that, don't you?"
"Why isn't it happening, Wynonna."
"The... the curse, for one," Wynonna throw her hands up and open, "And a
million other reasons. All it'd take would be a background check and we'd...
have to move again. This was a mistake."
"Yeah, well, we knew that." Waverly spits it out like a curse.
"No, not- I mean, talking about this. Now... but yeah, this whole thing is
probably a mistake."
"Sorry I brought it up," Waverly rolls her shoulders back like she wants to do
with her eyes, but Wynonna is a proud creature and Waverly has gotten fairly
decent at knowing when not to poke the bear, "Whatever. Wanna fuck me again?"
///
Curtis borrowed Gus' truck. He followed them from the school, keeping an ample
distance between them. The roads are so empty and clean that he doesn't need to
worry about losing them. He still suspects drugs. He still suspects something.
 
///
Waverly wishes she could die on the ride home. In the passenger seat of Gus'
truck, with Curtis screaming while he drives. He's so angry; he's so... so out
of it, that Waverly winces every time she sees another car. She's terrified. Of
crashing. Of staying in the car. Of stopping. Of them reaching their
destination.
She wants to fucking die.
Waverly's fingers are digging half-moons into her palms and she's sobbing,
she’ssobbing, and there's nothing she can say because he knows, he saw
everything, he saw everything and Waverly speaks four languages but she doesn't
know a single word to get herself out of this. She tried sorry. She said it
again and again and again while he pulled Wynonna away, while he cussed her
out, both of them screaming, while he threw her onto the ground and Waverly
honestly believed for a good half a minute that he was going to kill her.
Violence is the only word Waverly keeps thinking of. Violence. There hadn't
even been any actual blood, but she's so hung up on it, just going over and
over in her head.  The pure mix of action and horror is something Waverly's
only ever been through once before, and she doesn't even remember the first
time.
Even the speed of it felt offensive. Waverly knows, in reality, that the whole
thing was over in less than a minute, but she's playing a cut of it in her head
that stretches out every second.  The moment she saw him from over Wynonna’s
shoulder, how they’d been moaning too loud to hear him coming. The eye contact,
him running to the side of the car, almost breaking in the window.
She's never been that afraid. She's never felt that stupid.
Wynonna had gone the opposite way in Curtis' truck, under clear instructions to
'leave it outside Shorty's and get gone fast, I don't care about what shit
you've got at my fucking house you better leave as fast as you fucking can I
never want to see your fucking face again do you understand? Do you fucking
understand me?'
Curtis hasn't stopped screaming about it since but Waverly can't even hear what
he's saying, or her brain is trying to protect her by not processing it. It’s
loud enough that other cars can hear them. The few times when Waverly actually
does look up from her lap, out the window, people are starting at them from the
side of the road. She keeps her head back down.
She can’t look at him. He’s the closest thing to a father she ever remembers
having and she can’t ever imagine looking at him again.
Waverly's knuckles turned white a long time ago and the muscles in her arms are
so tense that she’s sure she’ll be sore tomorrow. Tomorrow. Nowthat's a
thought. Waverly can't imagine making it through the night, can't imagine hours
passing the way they should. She knows she won't sleep. She wonders if she'll
have a home, come the morning.
Curtis seems to be hammering the same few points; how shocked he is, how
disgusted, how he can't believe what they've done. The worst part is he's right
about all of it. There's nothing Waverly can say because he's right, she
doesn't have a leg to stand on. She just takes it, absorbs every scream into
her body until it feels like her bones are vibrating at a frequency that might
kill bees.
When the road shifts from paved to dirt, Waverly looks ups again. They're
closed to the homestead. Waverly doesn't really know how this could get worse,
but she feels like it's about too. If it were up to Waverly, she'd never go
home again.
Curtis pauses for a moment. It's just enough to catch his breath, or maybe so
that he doesn't frighten the horses, but Waverly takes her chance to ask.
"Please don't tell Gus," she asks. Waverly needs one person in her family who
she can still look at, who won't treat her differently for the rest of her
life. Who won't hate her, "Please, I'll do anything, just don't tell Gus.
Please."
Curtis is half way up the driveway and takes his foot off the gas for what
feels like the first time that entire trip. Curtis side eyes her.
At least it's an indication he's listening.
"Please, she doesn't have to know. Wynonna's already gone," Curtis tenses at
the use of her name, "It'd upset her, too. Please, just don't tell anyone. I'll
take whatever I need to but please don't tell anyone else."
Waverly's entire face is burning. She can't remember ever feeling this much
shame, not at all once, all concentrated like that. She's looking around the
car and imagining all the different ways something could possibly go wrong.
She's taking stock of the number of guns in the house, where they are, how hard
they'd be for her to get. It's too much. It's not fun anymore. She just wants
to tap out.
Curtis stops the car in front of the homestead without slowing down enough.
They both lurch forward. Waverly, without a seatbelt, stops inches from putting
her head through the windshield. She tries to recover as smoothly as she can,
and straightens herself out, every single fibre of muscle tensed.
Curtis seems to be thinking about something. Waverly isn't sure if that's good
or bad for her. He lowers his voice when he speaks again, even lower than it
normally is. It sounds dangerous.
"Did she..." Waverly doesn't miss how he avoids using Wynonna's name. Curtis
looks uncomfortable, like he doesn't know what to say, a complete turnaround
from how confident and absolute in his words he'd been just minutes ago, "...
force you?"
Waverly's glad she's not looking at him because it gives her the benefit of
hiding her reaction.
She hadn't. She hadn't, even though that had been a point of contention near
the start of their... relationship. It was one thing Wynonna couldn't let go
of, and Wynonna wasn't even the type to wallow in guilt. She just never seemed
to be able to forget that night at the bonfire, how this had all started. What
almost happened. What didn'thappen, but still.
Still.
It's the first time in an hour Curtis has stopped screaming, and he's looking
at her like maybe, maybe there might be something to salvage.
This man, this man who raised her, was giving her an out. All she had to do to
take it was call her lover a rapist.  
Wynonna would never even get the chance to defend herself.
Waverly wonders where she is now. The last thing she’d seen of her was her
jacket flapping as she ran; her starting the car and speeding off in the
direction Curtis told her to go.
Waverly pictures her alone, staring out the window on a Greyhound. She wonders
if Wynonna’s praying for the same things she is, doing the same type of suicide
math she'd been doing (how many pills could she hoard before someone notices
they were missing? How many bullets could she sneak away?)
The difference is, Wynonna’s alone. Wynonna doesn’t have an out.
Waverly doesn’t feel remotely qualified to make this decision.
It takes actual concentration for her to force her hands to uncurl. Only when
she stops digging her fingernails into her palms does she realise that it
actually hurts, and she winces when her nails withdraw. Curtis is still
watching her, expectant. Waverly doesn’t have the courage to glance higher than
his mouth; the eyes would be too much.
Waverly just wants to be able to look at him again.
She knows this will ruin them, whatever they are. Wynonna won’t ever forgive
her. Worse, Wynonna won’t ever forgive herself. But, God. Waverly isdesperate
to fix this.
Besides, they’re already ruined. It's not like she'll ever fucking see Wynonna
again, anyway.
"Yeah,” Waverly flattens out her hands and they ache as the skin stretches,
“Yeah, she did.”
***** Chapter 5 *****
Chapter Notes
     WHEW. what was that last episode?
     in trying to stay as true to canon as possible, ive had to move some
     things around. its tricky to work within the actual canon
     timeframe...but i think this is decent.
It'd been a mess of red tape.  Wynonna'd left her passport and ID and driver's
license all at Gus and Curtis' house, and that'd been a bureaucratic nightmare
to sort out, but eventually she'd gotten as far away as she could. She followed
Curtis’ ‘advice’ all the way to Greece, the furthest she'd ever gone.
Wynonna really didn't plan on ever going back. She put down roots in Greece, as
deep as she was capable of, which still wasn’t that bad. She got a job. She got
a girlfriend, or something like it. She stabilised.
There were months where she hardly spoke to anyone. Waverly only texted her on
Holidays. Right back to where they started, to the long months of silence after
that night at the bonfire. Wynonna supposes it was warranted. She figures
Curtis was probably screening Waverly's texts. Gus was the only one she
actually spoke to anymore.
Wynonna made herself alright with it. It's amazing what kind of a beating you
can take, and still heal from. How determined the human spirit is to return to
equilibrium. Even if she tried, Wynonna just wasn't capable of suffering that
much for that long. No matter how much she let herself wallow in it. She had
accepted it. She had.
And then Curtis emailed her and died a week later. If it’s serious enough to
warrant him speaking to her again, Wynonna figures, it must be pretty fucking
serious.
Wynonna reallyhadn't meant to ever go back to Purgatory again. But you never
really know, do you.
///
Coming back is a patently bad idea, Wynonna knows that, but it's also
unavoidable. The whole time she's been away, she's still been tethered by one
thing; that curse that she's never really been able to stop believing in. She'd
tried damn hard, and her therapists had too, to convince herself that she was
just crazy. It’d be simpler that way, and she probably wascrazy, in some way,
but Wynonna knows what she saw. Knows what the Earp name is. What it means.
Funny how all her problems seem to come back to that, to the history she can't
ever out run.
She's not even within the city limits before she sees someone die.
///
Gus eyes her across from Curtis' burial plot and Wynonna feels like an imposter
in her own skin. Gus doesn't even know the whole history with Curtis, couldn't
even imagine how badly it had ended, but she knows they weren't on speaking
terms.
Wynonna knows Curtis wouldn't have wanted her here. When everyone lines up to
pay their respects and give their condolences, Wynonna hangs back. It's the
least and the most she can do all at once: the give the dead what they want.
///
"Why are you back, Wynonna? Haven't the people who love you suffered enough?"
"Probably."
///
The bar hasn't changed much, but that's about the only comforting thought. The
patrons still eye her with disdain the second she walks through, and Wynonna
feels all their eyes on her skin.
One of them steps up to her, trying to get a reaction with a story from a
hundred years ago. Everyone assumes her history is a sensitive spot: it isn't.
Wyatt Earp died long before she was born, and if it weren't with the curse he's
passed on to her, he'd be nothing but a picture and a name in a history book.
It's not what he's saying that makes her want to kick his ass; just that he has
the gall to say it in the first place.
She's about to go off on him when Champ taps him on the shoulder. "Get beaten
up by a girl again?" he says, and sends his friend off and out of the bar.
Wynonna wants to roll her eyes.
Yet another reason she didn't want to come back.
When Champ starts blatantly flirting with her, Wynonna assumes that means he's
broken up with Waverly. That's some small measure of comfort, and she hopes to
hell it was her who dumped him, but she doesn't have the time of the verbal
dexterity to obtain those details. She needs to know about Curtis.
It's not hard to get Champ to invite her up; he's always been simple, and
that's the only reason Wynonna doesn't hate him more.  Champ is an idiot, and
was never good enough for Waverly, and thinks a six pack and tattoos are a
substitute for a personality, but Wynonna has never felt threatened by him. He
isn’t smart enough for her to consider him an enemy.
Wynonna knows Waverly loved her more, she’s said as much, and that Champ wasn’t
anything more than convenient. She’d always known her place in the hierarchy,
before.
Wynonna wonders if that’s changed.
In his room above the bar, Wynonna recognises several of Waverly’s things. So
they arestill together.
Maybe Wynonna does hate him, then.
///
Waverly fires a shotgun at her and it's a fairly fitting reunion, all in all.
Champ is there when they make eye contact, which severly limits both of their
options.
“Wynonna?”
She rises from her crouched position.
“Hey, sis,” Wynonna’s not even sure if she’s allowed to say that, “You grew out
your…. Hair.”
Waverly wants to say something but closes her mouth first, chews on her words.
She gives Champ a withering glare that says they have things to talk about, and
then gives Wynonna the same one.
They don’t say a word as they walk through Shorty's and onto the street.
Wynonna’s still brushing plaster from the shot off of her jacket, out of her
hair.
"What are you doing in town? I mean besides my boyfriend."
"Okay, I wasn’t gonnado anyone, least of all that man-child."
Waverly scoffs.
“I’m trying to find out what happened to Curtis.”
 Champ's been left in the apartment but they're still on the street, and there
are still too many ears nearby for either one of them to talk freely. About
Curtis’ death… or anything else.
"Oh, and you can do better." Wynonna says. Waverly looks good. Really good.
Clearly she’d been making use of those three years, Wynonna thinks. Her skins
better than it’s ever been, not that it’d bad, and she’s finished filling out
in all the places that matter.
"Well, small town, limited dating options." Waverly doesn’t even try to fight
her on it.
"Oh yeah, I remember,” Wynonna says, and it throws Waverly off balance. Her
sarcasm hasn’t faded and it’s still enough to get her into trouble. It’s the
closest she's come to acknowledging it, and neither of them know exactly what
game they’re playing, what the rules are.
Waverly looks at Wynonna while Wynonna looks away. She allows herself just one
moment to observe her, mouth pressed in a tight line. She’s focused in a way
Waverly hasn’t seen in years. It’ssomething.
 “Hey!” she smacks at Wynonna’s chest, and the pure movement of it breaks her
train of thought. Waverly stops in her tracks. For a second, Wynonna expects
she's about to get slapped.
“What?”
“It’s been three years,” Waverly says. She doesn’t mention the why of it. “God,
come here.”
She pulls Wynonna into a hug, wrapping arms around her neck. Wynonna doesn’t
let her hands settle. It’s too much, Waverly against her. She can smell her
perfume and feel every curve of her body, and it’s too much.Waverly must know
the effect she has. Does she care?
Wynonna pats her on the back and breaks away.
“You couldn’t tell me you were coming?”
“I wasn’t.”
///
This agent, Dolls, is really getting on her nerves. Most people, even if they
don’t respect her, are at least afraid of her. Not him. Wynonna’s brash with
him and managed to get him out of the house as quickly as possible, but his
presence still lingers along with that uncomfortable question.
Waverly comes down the steps. Wynonna had both arms behind her on the counters,
bracing herself. She doesn’t look up as Waverly walks past her, tapping out a
pattern with her fingers on the table.
“He seems nice.”
“As a swift kick to the box.”
“So.”
Wynonna swallows, still refusing to look up. She doesn’t mean to, but her eyes
land right on Waverly’s midsection, where just a sliver of her smooth skin is
exposed.
It’s the first time they’ve been alone, really alone, since she came back. No
one to overhear, just the two of them alone in Gus’ kitchen. Wynonna remembers
backing Waverly up against the counter early one morning, before Gus and Curtis
were awake, sucking on her neck and fingering her while Waverly called her
daddy.
This is it, Wynonna thinks, it’s coming.She braces for it.
“Your 27th birthday.”
Or not.
Wynonna turns away from her and downs the drink she prepared. If there was ever
a good time to talk about it, this would be it, but Waverly doesn't bring it
up. Doesn't even try. Doesn’t even want to.
Waverly’d been acting decidedly sisterly since she’d arrived, in a way that
doesn’t feel entirely genuine. Wynonna thought she was compensating. But maybe
she just isn’t interested.
“That doesn’t mean anything Waverly.”
 “Oh yeah? Then why do you look so spooked?” Waverly tilts her head and even
though her back is turned, Wynonna can feel the confidence radiating off of
her. Like she knows exactlywhat’s going on, knows everything. Wynonna places
her glass back down and faces her. She’s so… put together. Her braid is neat
and her outfit is cute, not slutty. Her makeup is soft and natural and she
doesn’t really smell like anything but it’s clean. She’s got a job and a
boyfriend and the love of a whole town behind her.
She’s moved on.
It takes seeing her like this for Wynonna to realise it’s not what she’d been
expecting. She’d been expecting, on some level, to pick right up where they
left off. But ‘where they'd left off’ was the worst day of both of their lives,
Wynonna running away from death threats while Waverly screamed at her to stay,
so Wynonna’s not even sure what that would mean.
Wynonna needs to get out of the house, that room that feels like it’s closing
in on her.
“Tell Gus I’m taking the truck.”
Just because Wynonna’d spent three years wallowing doesn’t mean Waverly had to.
She’s normal now, and who the hell is Wynonna to waltz back in and touch that.
She takes the hint. Waverly at least deserved a shot at the normalcy she worked
so hard for.
///
Or apparently, not.
Waverly has a whole psycho level murder board hidden away, with pins and
pictures and notes. More than that, there's a whole file on the curse. She
hadn't stopped looking.
“You’re supposed to be normal, Waverly. You're supposed to be safe!” Wynonna
shouts, because she had, she had, and Wynonna had always through that she'd
been the one to take that from her. Thought nothing could be worse than the
knowledge that she'd robbed her sister of her best chance. But this.. this was
worse. This.. Waverly had done it to herself.
Waverly sees the gun in her boot and reaches for it. Wynonna keeps it back; she
doesn't want to use any kind of real force against Waverly but she can't get
her hands on it. Wynonna knows Waverly: if she starts gets to hold it, she'll
never let it go.
"It's old, and it doesn't shoot straight, and it's worth enough to buy us both
a chrome condo five thousand miles from here."
“This is our home, Wynonna. I'll protect it, even if you won't.”
Wynonna remembers three years back, to the last hour they spent together before
it all came crashing down. She remembers Waverly being the one to suggest
running away, the two of them stealing away in the night with as much as they
could carry and never looking back. Wynonna had thought it was utterly
ridiculous, at the time. Now, it just seems like the most sensible course of
action.
Funny how utterly the tables have turned.
“Pack this shit up. This time, you're coming with me.” Wynonna points to the
board behind her and starts walking. Waverly doesn’t follow.
 “Oh, yeah, run!”
“Always do,” Wynonna seethes. It’s a low blow, it isn’t fair. That last time
hadn’t even been her choice.
“I'm serious. I'm taking the 6 a.m. bus with or without you.” Her whole life,
nothing good has happened to her here. The closest thing to anything worthwhile
was taken from her three years ago and there is nothing left for Wynonna in
Purgatory except for the girl (woman, she reminds herself) in front of her.
“Right,” it’s amazing how something spoken so soft can sound so utterly
venomous. Wynonna doesn’t miss the way Waverly’s tearing up.
If she was someone else, if she had the right to, if this was still three years
ago and they were still each other’s lovers, Wynonna would have rushed forward
and grabbed her and kissed her until they were both breathless.
But she isn’t, and she doesn’t. And they aren’t.
“You know, of all the things I've ever wanted to call you...” Waverly shakes
her head, eyes wet, and she knows that if she blinks right now she’ll start
crying. Knows that the second Wynonna leaves, it’ll be all she can do to the
fall to the floor and sob.
She still doesn’t break eye contact. 
“You're such a coward.”
///
Waverly almost dies within twenty four hours of their reunion. Wynonna knows
that bad news tends to follow her, butfuck.
It’d been so close. If she’d been just off in her aim, off like she’d been with
their father… Jesus. Wynonna doesn’t want to think about it. She doesn’t hear
Waverly approach.
“You’re really staying this time, aren’t you?”
Wynonna’s balanced on the fence and looking out over the plains. She can
remember running across them as a child, wanting to go as far out as she could
for no other reason than she could.  
Waverly leans across the fence, hands out behind her. Her outfit shouldn't work
but it does. Her hair is in a loose ponytail and falls far down her back, and
Wynonna wishes she could kiss her. Wynonna doesn't know how to be with her,
anymore.
 “That’s why they call it a curse.”
///
Waverly’s feelings for Wynonna have always been complicated enough all by their
own, thank you, without Waverly seriously considering what that implied about
her sexual orientation. It’d always been so far beyond the vale, anyway, that
it didn’t even matter than Wynonna was a girl. Just that she was Wynonna.
Somehow she’d slept with a woman several dozen times and still Waverly hadn’t
ever considered what that meant.
And then Nicole Haughtwalks into the bar.
She's charming from the first second, and Waverly would be annoyed if she
weren't all caught up in it herself. Waverly doesn't even point out the obvious
issues in her saying that she thought they were open (It was empty, it was
noon, there were chairs stacked on tables) because she's too busy thinking
about how nice she looks when she smiles.
God, and Nicole knows it, too.
The entire universe seems to want to make this as hard for her as humanly
possible, because the tap chooses that exact moment of all the times she'd
touched it in the last week to explode all over there. And then she'd taking
her shirt off with Nicole in the room, and then she's stuck. Nicole comes
around the bar to help her, and Waverly notices how nice she smells. It stands
out, after being around Wynonna; she doesn't smell bad, just too chemical, just
to motorcycle-exhaust-cigarette-aftertaste, and Waverly doesn't even notice
until she's away from her just how used to it she's become.
///
This flirt-but-don’t-flirt thing with Nicole starts to become a bit too much
too handle. It would be fun, if she were anyone else, but there was still
Champ. And the demon reventants. And everything she still hadn't talked to
Wynonna about. It was just another thing she had to try and fix, no matter how
cute Nicole is or how nice she looks when she smiles or how her hair smells.
Champ doesn't deserve it. Waverly decided years ago that he was a good guy, and
he hadn't ever proved her wrong. Every time she's with him she thinks about
Nicole, and it feels even worse than it did when she was cheating on him with
Wynonna. Somehow, that didn't feel like cheating. Or, the fact that it was
cheating was the least of her worries, so she didn't even think about it,
really. Nicole is... real, and here, and is really an option.
She ends it with Champ long before it even becomes anything real with Nicole.
She's already cheated on him once, she refuses to do it again. He takes it
surprisingly well, if she ignores the long string of texts and calls she finds
from him every time she checks her phone for the next week.
It's for the best. It really is.
She tells Nicole she broke up with him and her reaction is predictable; she’s
pleased, obviously, but tries to hide it under the thin veil of 'Oh no, that's
too bad, are you alright?"
Waverly gives her a tired smile and lays a hand on Nicole's forearm.
"It's alright. You don't have to," Waverly locks eyes with her, "I know you
didn't like him. Sometimes, I'm not sure if I even liked him."
Nicole laughs a little too hard at that.
"Wanna go get a drink?"
Waverly pulls her hand back.
"Uh, Nicole, I," Waverly stutters. It was fast. Too fast. She knew Nicole liked
her, but Jesus, she'd expected she's offer a little time to grieve too. She
didn't expect her to swoop in the second he was gone, vulture like and
unrepentant. Not Nicole.
"Relax," Nicole says, "Not like that. Just a drink. Friendly. I figure you
could use it."
Waverly smiles to herself.
"Where? It'd be kinda sad to drink at the place I work, don't you think."
"Sad? Nah, you know where they keep the good stuff."
"What good stuff?"
Nicole lifts an eyebrow and leans into the laugh.
"So that's a yes?"
"Yeah. Alright. I just gotta check I have my ID. I always get carded."
"Yeah, cause you look about twelve."
"Watch it, Haught. I can change my mind."
The night goes fine. She gets carded, of course, and Nicole teases her about
it. They sit together in a booth and get gradually more and more wasted until
past midnight.
It’s just friendly. Nothing happens. She isn’t even with Champ.
It still feels like she’s cheating. Waverly doesn’t know why.
///
That’s a lie. She does know why.
It's because part of her never left that truck. There's a clearing in a forest
in her head where a winter afternoon never turns dark, where Wynonna's hand
stay on her body forever. It’s always the moment right after Wynonna says she
loves her, and in this version Waverly gets to say it back. In this version,
Curtis never comes. Wynonna never leaves.
The Wynonna in her head is different than the one in the next room, now moving
something heavy around. Waverly can hear it thud and scratch in a strange way
that keeps Waverly from figuring out exactly what she's doing. Waverly's on her
bed, and she pulls her knees up to her chest. It's the first time they've lived
together in more than a decade, and neither of them really know or remember how
to navigate sharing space that isn't the driver's seat of Wynonna's truck.
She can’t think about Nicole without thinking of Wynonna, and however much she
wants… whatever she wants. It’s just all a mess, and Nicole is… terrifying in
an entirely different way, and Waverly doesn’t know if she’s brave enough or if
it’ll kill her, and it’s just all so complicated and she doesn’t see a way for
it to just-
Fuck it.
Waverly gets up from her bed and starts moving fast, so fast she can’t even
stop to think, because if she does she’ll lose all her nerve. She closes the
door too hard, and Wynonna yells after her, asking where she’s going. Waverly
starts the car just as Wynonna makes it out the door, and drives off to find
Nicole.
***** Chapter 6 *****
Chapter Summary
     this almost killed me lmao. writing around canon events is.. hard.
     and i feel liek i got too introspective at parts but uuh.. anyway .
So, she's dating Nicole now. That's... different. Maybe dating isn't exactly
the right word -  they haven't had that conversation yet (and somewhat
importantly, they haven't actually gone on a date) - but they're spending a lot
of time together and making out at regular intervals, so Waverly supposes that
means something.
Waverly swings by Nicole's desk and grabs a file, and Nicole catches on quick.
She follows Waverly to Nedley's office with an endearing grin plastered on her
face, and leans in for Waverly's mouth before they're even through the door.
Movement from the side of her eye makes Waverly pull away. No one knows.
They're keeping it secret. Nicole thinks it's because Waverly isn't out, which
it partly is, but more than that. She isn't afraid, not of the town's
judgement, even though folks in Purgatory could be pretty slow to change. She's
handled worse. She's survived worse. Waverly imagines telling people, seeing
the confusion and the realisation and then the anger? Acceptance? More
confusion?On their faces.
It doesn't even feel that scary. In all the hypotheticals, Nicole is by her
side, and that makes everything easy.
Until she thinks about telling Wynonna.
Wynonna, who walks into the Sherriff’s office and almost catches Nicole and
Waverly together,. They both try to act as casual as possible, which isn’t
very, as Wynonna gives the two of them a strange look.
Thinking about Wynonna shuts everything down fast. The one person she can't
tell. There's too much there, the whole thing is a fucking minefield. She has
no idea how Wynonna would react; for all their history, Waverly realises that
she actually doesn't know that much about Wynonna. They haven't spent enough
time together, and when they were spending time together, they had more
pressing issues than talking to each other.
Champ hadn't been an issue in the same way. Waverly had just texted Wynonna to
fill her in, without any of the doubting or agonizing. She wonders if it's
because Champ's a man, if that made it easier. Not just in the obvious way, but
because he was so incomparable to Wynonna it didn't even matter. Apples and
oranges.
"Why are you guys in Nedley's office?" Wynonna looks at them and leans over the
counter.
"We were just- uh..." Nicole glances around, apparently forgetting the file
Waverly has in her hand, and points to some indeterminate spot deeper in the
station.
"Y- yeah," Waverly agrees, even though Nicole hasn't really said anything.
Wynonna half raises on eyebrow, too tired to even be really suspicious. Or too
busy, maybe.
Still, she can't conceal everything, and Waverly doesn't miss the way her
expression flickers for just a second before moving on to the next thing.
///
“What, are you and Nicole best friends now?”
Waverly lingers in the doorway for just a second, before she turns and walks
through it.
“And what the hell is a poker spectacular?”
///
Waverly's holding her shirt up to expose the wound and she doesn't miss the way
Wynonna looks at her, not for a second. She preoccupies herself with the
medicine, getting it ready, has to force herself not to look when it's so
obvious she wants to. Waverly almost wants to tell her to just give it up, to
look all the wants. It's so much more awkward when she has to try so hard to
restrain herself.
Wynonna reaches over the table with some of the ointment on two fingers, and
makes light contact with just that one area of Waverly's skin. It's so light,
it's like she's not even touching, not really. Wynonna's arm is unsteady;
Waverly can see the way strange muscles - muscles that people haven't needed
for a hundred thousand years since man descended from trees - tense and flicker
all the way up her forearm.
"You think it'll scar?"
"Dudes dig scars," her voice is too flat, like it's not really making contact
with what she's saying. Waverly's arm is up at a weird angle, trying to hold
her shirt up, and she wants to just drop it and cover up. She's too exposed.
She's too...
This is too dangerous.
Everything with Wynonna is too dangerous. Every word means more than it does.
She can't touch her without considering it. Even being alone in the same
room... that's dangerous, too.
"Do chicks?" Waverly can't help the way her eyes flick down and back up a
moment later. Wynonna looks goodwhen she's focused on something. Some people
look better smiling, and some people look best when they're sad. Wynonna looks
best when she's on a mission.
Wynonna stops what she's doing, stills her hands. Something like a ghost
crosses Wynonna's face. For a second, she looks so much younger. So much
sadder, too. Then it’s just all confusion.
 Wynonna face pinches together at points and Waverly fights to keep her
expression normal, not give Wynonna what she wants to see there. Waverly isn't
even sure what Wynonna wants to see, or if she even knows it herself.
Waverly drops her shirt down and it's like that lets Wynonna focus again, by
putting it away. Her eyes soften, everything softens, and for just a second she
looks so at peace. Her lips open just a fraction, and Waverly notices just how
red they are.
The table is small and there's room in the kitchen. It'd be easy to reach over
it. Wynonna can be gentle - with Waverly - when she needs to be. Waverly
wonders if they... right then.. if it would be bad for her injury. If she'd
even mind if it hurts a bit.
Dolls walks in a second later and the energy dissipates, and Waverly is so
relieved.
If he hadn't....
///
"Give me peacemaker, or I punch a punch of holes in Waverly's girlfriend."
Waverly knows it’s inappropriate to be worried about stumbling out of the
closet when there's a very real chance Nicole could be seconds away from
getting shot, but she can't help it. She flinches the second Willa lets it
slip.
"Girlfriend?" Wynonna feels like the floor gets ripped out from under her. She
glances at Waverly. The worst part is she doesn’t even have the right to feel
betrayed.
"Kind of."
"Kind of?"
This issonot the time.
"I know you won't shoot," It's a bluff. Wynonna doesn't know. She's been
realising just how little she knows about everything, how she only just found
out about Waverly and Nicole because one of them was about to get shot. How she
can't see anything. Or doesn't want to see, rather.
"What do I care about some ginger butch cop?" Willa's hand is steady on the gun
and her face is even steadier. She's been gone a long time. Waverly wonders
what the hell had to happen to her to make her life this.
"Wynonna, she'll do it," Waverly would hand Peacemaker over herself, if she had
it. She leans forward, closer to Wynonna, but any kind of fast movement is
likely to trigger Willa into shooting.
"It's the only thing that'll stop Bobo," Wynonna says. It's not what she wants
to stay; her mind is still stuck a few sentences back. Girlfriend. Girlfriend.
Time to process is a luxury none of them can afford. She had to keep going,
forward. Has to rip her brain off of sticky thoughts, no matter how much it
hurts.
“Please, I love her.” Waverly tries to whisper it but Wynonna hears, Nicole
hears, Willa hears. They all hear and they all watch Wynonna.
Something so dark and sick and angry stabs at Wynonna from the inside that she
half expects Peacemaker to turn on her for it. She won’t call it evil. It’s not
a demon or a revenant or a monster; those she can understand. Those she can
see.
Those she can kill.
Wynonna wants to hold onto that moment, to remember just how much it hurts.
Maybe if she drives the knife in deep enough herself, lets the pain stay, leans
into it. Maybe if she lets it almost kill her, if she never lets it go, if she
never forgets how bad it hurts, then at least she'll learn her fucking lesson
this time. At this stage, Wynonna isn't convinced anything short of
electroshock therapy could cure her. Maybe not even then.
But Waverly’s in love with Nicole, and Wynonna is too in love with Waverly to
deny her that. It’s what she’d always told herself she wanted: for Waverly to
be normal, happy. Time to put her money where her mouth is.
“Okay.”
Wynonna has to force her hand up to hand it over. She's not sure if she's
imagining it, but she thinks she hears Waverly whisper a thank you.
"We're coming for you," Wynonna says, even though she's just given away her
secret weapon, her trump card.
"Then I better slow you down."
Willa shoots Nicole anyway. Wynonna freezes for too long: she should have
grabbed her, she was faster than Willa, stronger too, she should've talked her
and got the gun, if she hadn't been so goddamn slow.
Waverly reacts before she does, but she goes straight for Nicole. Wynonna
turns; she doesn't think she's ever seen Waverly quite so scared, not even on
the day Curtis found them.
It's so selfish. She wants to be the only reason Waverly worries. Nicole's
taken that from her.
"No blood. There's no blood," Wynonna walks slowly toward them. Waverly's got
Nicole on her back and her hands are a blur, but she’s unfocused, isn’t
helping.
“My sister joined the dark side, and if you’ve been a revenant this whole time
I’m just gonna call in sick tomorrow.”
///
She kills Willa, and then they take Dolls. It all goes so fast that being in
love with her sister quickly becomes Wynonna's smallest problem.
She doesn't rest for days. Wynonna doesn't think she's ever worked that hard in
that short a period of time. Everything inside her is sore, bone tired. She
feels heavier, like someone took something out of her, or put something in.
Waverly notices. Of course she does. She pulls Wynonna aside and tells her as
much. Wynonna doesn’t miss the way Nicole looks at them as they leave together.
Nicole doesn't know, of course. She can't. The only person besides the two of
them who ever knew is dead, head taken clean off his shoulders. Still, Wynonna
doesn't like the way Nicole is looking. Or maybe she just doesn't like Nicole.
They go up to Waverly's old room, her childhood bedroom, and Wynonna realises
that she hasn't been up here for more than a couple of minutes in longer than
ten years. She'd stayed away since they'd moved back into the homestead: it
just felt too much, too personal. She felt like a guest in her own house, only
sticking to the public spaces. Kitchen, living room. The entire second floor
makes her feel like she didn't belong. Waverly's room was something else
entirely.
Waverly's concern feels so good though, and Wynonna can't help herself but to
lean into it.
///
“Hey Wynonna, have you noticed any… you know, changes, in Waverly?” Nicole
asks.
Wynonna just wants to leave. Any good will she’d had toward Nicole when they’d
first gotten to know each other, about her being smart and reasonable and well-
armed, had dissipated real fast when she’d found out just how involved Nicole
and Waverly were.
She can tell Nicole must think she’s real fucking smart, like she’s clued into
something special, the only one who can understand Waverly. She doesn’t. She
know Waverly, she doesn’t know shit. 
“Were you hoping for some?”
Waverly’s not acting strange. A lot has happened. It’s just to be expected. If
Nicole knew Waverly like she did, Wynonna thought, she’d know better. Waverly’s
fine, as fine as she could be. Just shaken up.
///
Famous last words. Waverly loses a hand, and then gets it back, and all over
some stupid plate. It’s a hell of a day, and Wynonna is tired. She wants to
sleep, and ignore the high tension confession Waverly had made while they were
both tied down to chairs and trying to escape.
 
 
“We should talk about the uh, demon goo,” Wynonna wrings her hands out infront
of her. Nervous tick. “At the arch.”
Waverly turns away from her, walks away, slowly.
“Babe,” Wynonna says. She doesn’t even have time to berate herself for her word
choice. She didn’t even think about it. “Whatever you did, I want to help.”
“Good,” Waverly says. Wynonna forces herself to stay in place. “Because I am so
sick of fighting her. She's so strong.”
“The thing inside of you?”
“No, stupid. The thing outside of me.”
Waverly turns, and it’s not Waverly.
Wynonna raises peacemaker. It glows and trembles in her hand.
“Like you're gonna kill another sister.”
The way she’s talking, the way she – it – spits out the words. It’s so unlike
Waverly. It makes it a bit easier.
“I won't let you kill her either.”
The gun doesn’t fit comfortably in her hand. It’s too sweaty and feels too
thick in places, like overthinking how to hold scissors. It doesn’t feel right.
If she pulled the trigger, she’s sure the kickback would send her halfway
across the room.
“If only. She's been resisting me so hard,” Waverly’s voice is her voice, but
not. The way she holds herself is so incompatible with the rest of her. “I'm
exhausted.”
Wynonna lowers the gun, but doesn’t drop it.
“Do you know how much energy it takes to regrow a human hand?”
Waverly, or whatever it is, holds its hand out and turns it slowly. It’s a
perfect recreation, fresh from her DNA with no scarring. That hand’s never even
been dirty. Never bled. Wynonna always loved Waverly’s hands.
“Waverly, baby girl,” Over the line, “if you're still in there-“
“I'm not having any fun.”
Neither am I, Wynonna thinks.
“But today…” the thing starts moving toward her. Wynonna is rooted in the spot.
She can’t move. “You… you like to have fun.”
It gets closer and closer, well into Wynonna personal space, and Wynonna
wonders just what powers this thing has. She wishes she could blame what she’s
feeling on hypnosis.
“Yeah, I'm a real hoot.”
She’s close, far too close. Wynonna can’t quite look at her, and her eyes keep
darting between the floor and just off Waverly’s head, like she’s looking at
her aura. Waverly face comes close to hers, so close that her eyes unfocus, she
can’t even see the detail right.
“Oh, and you'd be so easy.”
Waverly puts her hand to the side of Wynonna head, and tucks a loose strand of
hair behind her ear. It’s so unsettling: Waverly’s done it before, under very
differentcircumstances. When they were both tired and warm from each other’s
bodies and blissed out from orgasm, when everything felt soft and a little
golden. Next to that, this feels… offensive.
“What?” Wynonna knows what. The way Waverly is looking at her, eyes all black
but Wynonna can still tell they’re looking at her lips. She’s too close for
this to go any other way. It’s been so long since they’ve been so close.
Wynonna doesn’t realise until Waverly is touching her just how utterly starved
she is, how she wants to collapse forward and fall into her even though it’s
not really her.
She could pull away. She could. That’s always been an option, ever since this
all started, that first time Waverly kissed her at the bonfire. She could stop
her. She doesn’t.
When she sees Waverly move Wynonna close her eyes and leans in, just enough to
be sure she did it. Just enough to remove her own deniability.
It isn’t Waverly, but God, it looks like her. Kisses like her, too, which is
the mostsurprising. It’s not Waverly, but it’s the best she can get.
She’ll take it.
Until she feels something, and realises that it’s really not Waverly. The smoke
feels hot and tastes disgusting and she feels like she’s going to throw up but
the whole thing, mercifully, is over pretty quick. Wynonna feels herself fall
backward in her own mind and then Peacemaker starts to burn and Waverly falls
to the floor, unconscious.
“Oh yeah. Oh, this is so much better.”
Waverly’s laid out on the floor, on her side. Wynonna advances, not of her own
accord.
“Now. What are we going to do with you?”
Wynonna watches as her hand - not her hand - moves up the side of Waverly's
body. It's like she's tied down, eyes held open with matchsticks. She can't
stop looking. She can't even decide when she blinks. Like she's just watching
this all play out on a screen, impotent and screaming at a horror movie.
But this isn't a movie. This is just horror.
Wynonna still feels what her body feels. She knows what's coming. The demon, or
goo, or whatever it is bites its lip, and Wynonna knows. She's going to have to
watch. She's going to have to feel it. She's going to have to be there while it
rapes Waverly.
At least she's unconscious, Wynonna thinks, maybe she won't have to remember
this. Won't even have to know it happened. Wynonna wishes she had that luxury.
Maybe, if she's lucky, she won't remember it either. Maybe, if she's lucky, she
won't survive the possession.
///
Waverly's tied down to the chair, rag in her mouth, terrified. Wynonna is
terrifying, unhinged, unpredictable. Waverly had that thing inside her for
seven weeks, she knows better than anyone how absolutely destructive it can be.
She also knows that, somewhere in there, Wynonna is still watching, fighting
it.
Waverly can't tell if the demon is stronger now or if Wynonna is just weaker
than her. She'll never say it, but she suspects the latter.
Wynonna hadn’t managed to take control once last night, not even as… as any of
it, as she had to watch, she wasn’t strong enough. She wasn’t fighting hard
enough. She only breaks through once, briefly, and it takes Waverly almost
dying to do it. She manages to wrestle control for long enough to drop the saw,
but she’s not around for much longer than that. Waverly knows it’s Wynonna
through and through because of her eyes and not just because of the colour:
because of how sorry they look. She can see Wynonna wants to scream it, but her
words are so limited because her mouth isn’t her own and Waverly just stares
back and hopes she gets it, that she understands. She forgives.  
They both know what happened, even if they don’t want to. Even if they can’t
say it.
Waverly’s clothes are back in place, messy, but nothing turned inside out.
Nothing so obvious that you'd immediately be able to tell what happened.
Waverly could've woken up and assumed it was just an effect of being moved
while she was out. She'd been lying on a cold, hard floor. She's slept wrong.
That made sense. That was a fine explanation. She could make herself believe
that. The popped button on her shirt, the crook of her neck, the way her legs
hurt - it didn't have to mean anything.
But it did. She’s sore in a way she only ever was after Champ, and if she looks
for evidence, she knows she'll find it.
Wynonna’s gone again as quickly as she came, and Waverly flinches when the
thing leans in and plants a harsh kiss on her cheek.
“My rides here.”
///
“Waverly needs space. She's dying under the weight of your expectations.
Waverly's not the white picket fence in Purgatory girl you want her to be
anymore.” Even though it’s not her own words, Wynonna still gets a sick kind of
pleasure in saying them. There’s so much she wants to say to Nicole, and she’d
been working hard to keep her mouth shut.
 “You know Wynonna, you're really mean when you drink before noon,” Nicole
says. “And you drink before noon too often.”
The worst part is howright she is.
Nicole is so…decent. A good cop. A good woman. A greatgirlfriend, even by
Wynonna’s much less than objective account. She’s just so… well adjusted.
Opposite from Wynonna in every way that counts.
Wynonna never even thought she was the jealous type, and she has no right to be
jealous over Waverly any more. But fuck. It’s so much worse than Champ. He
wasn’t even a threat. Nicole is.  
“Hope your Tinder game's solid.”
///
“Stand back, Wynonna. Waverly told me everything. You come forward, and I'll
shoot.”
Nicole has her gun out and aimed at Wynonna. “Haught, settle down. The demon
jumped into Waverly,” Wynonna lifts the flask, “She needs to drink this. Now.”
Waverly’s behind her but her eyes are all black and she’d looking at Wynonna,
smirking like she’s won. Like it’swon.

“Don't trust her,” Waverly says.
“Yeah. Flask, demon did its homework,” it’s a cheap shot, one Wynonna knows
will stay in her mind when they get out of this. If.
“Nicole! You are not my sister's keeper.”
“That's the demon talking.”
“No. It's me. Listen, I'll admit, you're a little queen brisk of bossy town for
my taste,” a little bit a lot of things for Wynonna taste. I little too close
to Waverly for her taste, primarily, “but I know… that you love her and you
know I love her too, and now that thing is trying to keep her.”
Nicole can’t possibility understand what that means, or how hard it is for her
to say. Wynonna just hopes she gets the message.
“Shoot her. It's the only way.”
Nicole’s brows knot together. Her gun drops, just a bit, and she looks forward
into nothing.
“Waverly Earp would never say something like that. Never.”
Nicole turned around, saw two full black eyes.
“Ugh. You're weak.”
“Oh Waverly, let her help you.”
Waverly knocks Nicole to the side and she landed hard, painfully, on sharp
edges. Waverly isn’t that strong. Shouldn’t be that strong.
Wynonna approaches like she’s afraid of getting bit. Honestly, that isn’t an
entirely ridiculous conclusion. Waverly is chuckling but her voice isn’t right,
and she’s look at Nicole like she hasn’t done enough damage already. Wynonna
knows what the demon is capable of. Horribly, first hand, undoubtedly, she
knows.
“Waverly, honey. Babe,” Wynonna pauses, look at Nicole on the floor, “I know
you're in there. I know you can hear me.”
Waverly laughs, dancing around the lightning rod and with light touches here
and there.
“Look what you did to the woman you love.” Wynonna’s eyes flick down to where
Nicole isn’t entirely conscious yet, then back at Waverly. She’s surprised her
voice doesn’t shatter with how much it hurts to get out.
“Oh, storm's upon us. It's time.”
“You've held off this tentacle shit head for weeks. Just give it one more
push.” Wynonna holds the flask up, “Drink it. Fight it.”
Wynonna can see the exact moment Waverly comes back. It’s only in her face; her
eyes clear up, but the rest of her body still seems far too high strung to be
entirely human, “It - it won't …won't let me.”
“Waverly…”
“Wynonna! Remember when you made me drink grape soda 'til it came out of my
nose?”
Wynonna does remember: between the unwholesome attachment and the repression,
it’s among the few non fucked up childhood memories she still has left.
“Yeah!” she hits Waverly in the stomach and throws her onto the floor,
straddling her, all in one motion. Waverly groans and Wynonna doesn’t know if
she’s hurting her, or the monster,
“Open your mouth! Open it!” Waverly does, and Wynonna wastes no time in pouring
the solution down her throat. She can only imagine how bad it must taste. She
clamps a hand over Waverly’s mouth, and remembers the last time she did that,
it was for a very different reason.
“Ok! Drink! Drink it! Come on! Swallow!”
It goes remarkably quickly after that. The demon leaves Waverly, and Wynonna
shoots it down, Peacemaker singing and red and sending Mikshun all the way back
to hell. When he, she, it, whatever, is gone, Wynonna realises just how quiet
the barn is. She’s the only one fully conscious out of the three of them.
Nicole comes to first, and runs to Waverly. Wynonna has to stop herself from
making it a race to reach her: she doesn’t always get to be the first responder
anymore. She doesn’t get to be the knight.
“Oh, Waverly. Get up.”
“Whoa. That was so New Year's 2012.”
Wynonna stand back from the two of them, trying to keep her eyes away, trying
to figure out where to put her hands.
“I can't believe I ordered you to shoot her.”
“I almost did it, too. I would shoot anybody for you.”
“That's really sweet.”
Wynonna watches with gritted teeth as they lean in and kiss, and kiss, and it
goes for so fucking longand all she can do is stand there, the grip on
Peacemaker getting sweaty, and try not to think about when she used to kiss
Waverly like that.
When it’s just too much, Wynonna clears her throat.
“Come on. Let's get her in the house.”
She crouches down next to Nicole and takes half of Waverly weight.
“Thank you for saving our girl.” Nicole’s half talking from behind Waverly
head, her face buried in her hair. Wynonna tries not to flinch.
“That thing took Willa. Wasn't letting it get Waverly.”
“I knew you'd rescue me.” Waverly says.
“All I did was bring a flask. It's just standard Earp operating procedure.”
Between her and Nicole, they get Waverly up fairly easily.
“You said some nasty things.” Nicole says, once she’s steady.
“Well, that was the demon talking,” Wynonna takes Waverly’s weight entirely
onto her and forward, letting Nicole out of it. Nicole takes the hint and stays
behind. “I don't believe all of it.”
“Wait, what do you mean, ‘all of it’?” Nicole calls after them as Wynonna
finally gets Nicole out of there, gets her alone, where she doesn’t constantly
have to act like she’s happy for the new couple. The second they’re out on the
cold, Wynonna feels her whole body relax. The cult, or whatever they are, are
gone now too. She can see the vague movement of their silhouette’s in the
distance as the sun starts to set – aside from that, nothing out of place.
Waverly is Waverly again, and she’s demon free again.
Wynonna gets Waverly into the house and helps her all the way into her room.
She doesn’t let herself stay in there long, but promises Waverly she’ll be back
with some bullshit herbal tea in a minute.
For the moment, at least, it seems all pending crisises have been dealt with.
Wynonna plans to enjoy it while it lasts.
///
+ YES.
Fuck.
***** Chapter 7 *****
Chapter Summary
     Secrets don't stay that way.
Chapter Notes
     Sorry for the long wait, but I really got discouraged. Not to be that
     bitch, but writing for an unpopular pairing is really difficult
     because of just how little audience interaction you get, as I'm sure
     everyone's experienced at some point. I was discouraged earlier when
     people kinda promised to comment on other chapters, so I was
     expecting it, and ended up not. It's fine if you can't comment on
     every chapter, but don't say you will and then don't, because that's
     just really disappointing. When it took me like, a full 24 hours to
     get a single comment on the last chapter, and days more to get any
     more, I switched back to my other account to write for more popular
     ships for a while. I'm not asking everyone write a novel in the
     comments section, but comments really do fuel me.
     ANYWAY. I'm still gonna keep writing this angsty shit, but I might be
     a bit slower.
It's fine. She has options. She has time. Purgatory might be a backwater but
it's not so stuck in the past that Wynonna would have to travel a ridiculous
way to find a clinic that could do what she needed to. She figures she doesn't
look past first trimester, and gives herself a couple of weeks to choose, make
the appointment and get it done if she still wants to stay ahead of it. She's a
twenty first century woman, and she has choices. It's her body.
Then time stops for a month, for everyone but the baby. She's too busy to panic
at first, trying to keep everyone from sleeping so long they start to rot. She
finds Waverly half dressed in bed, not a new sight, but knows that means Nicole
is somewhere in the house too. Her worries are stacked so on top of each other
that she's not even panicking. It's something like a bed of nails: she only has
that much terror in her body, and it's dispersed evenly.
When it's all done, though, Wynonna realises she doesn’t really have much of a
choice anymore.
///
Waverly holds her that night and she cries into her lap, angry because
Waverly's giving all she can reasonably expect, and it's not enough, it's not
enough.
///
Waverly knows something is very wrong as soon as she arrives at Nicole's house.
Tucker's car is outside, just pulling out and speeding off. Waverly knows it's
his because it's a 2014 BMW, and the Gardeners are the only assholes rich
enough to own rich asshole cars in the entire Ghost River triangle area.
He slows down just a fraction when he passes Waverly, getting out of the track.
Wynonna in the other seat raises and eyebrow, and Waverly shrugs. She hops out
of the truck and the snow hardens under each step she takes on the way to
Nicole's house. Waverly's watching her feet, not looking up, and almost bumps
into Nicole before she realises that she's just standing in the door way.
"Oh, Nicole!" Waverly steps back and expects Nicole to smile, invite her in.
Her face is still and straight, and the most she reacts when she makes eye
contact with Waverly is stepping a little to the side in the doorway. Waverly
loses Nicole's eyes as they flick over her shoulder. She hears the door of the
truck open and shuts and knows Nicole is watching Wynonna, coming up behind
her.
Nicole rolls her jaw so hard something clicks. She doesn't say anything, but
steps out of the door way and holds her arm out for Waverly to enter. Wynonna
was just supposed to be dropping Waverly off on her way to meet with Dolls, but
Nicole keeps waiting.
Waverly walks past her into the house, trying to glance back one time, hopi9nh
to see Nicole give away something in her face. There's nothing, but whatever it
is, Waverly knows its not good. Waverly's never felt so cold in this house
before. It was one of the few places she'd always felt good. Sacred, almost.
Wynonna's boots thud on the steps on the way up but neither of them say
anything. Waverly turns back around the face the door and watches how Nicole
seems torn, half wanting to block Wynonna's entry, half wanting to shove her
inside. Wynonna's feet turn to leave but Nicole just stays, watching, until
Wynonna steps into the house too.
"Nicole... what is..."
Nicole steps into the house and closes the door behind them. It brings a draft
of icy wind with it, and Waverly shiver all the way down to her toes.
"I saw Tucker's car," Waverly says, pointing through the door to outside, "Was
he here?"
"Yep." Nicole says that, and nothing more.
"What did he... are you okay?" Waverly asks, stepping closer to Nicole.
"He didn't do anything to me." Nicole says, "But he told me something."
Waverly feels Wynonna shift next to her, more than hears it.
"Told you.... what?" Waverly frowns. Nicole is making this... difficult.
It's so unlike her.
"Something about you."
Waverly swallows, and Nicole walks past both of them and into the living room.
Waverly and Wynonna stand in the entry, looking over at each other, looking
over at Nicole.
"Sit." Nicole says. Waverly moves first, uncertain. Wynonna's twitching, taps
Peacemaker on her hip to make sure it's still there.
Waverly watches the floor as she walks.
"About me?" Waverly says.
Nicole shakes her head. "About both of you." Nicole's hands and tight and
wrapped over her knee caps. The knuckles are white. "About both of you...
together."
Waverly drops to the couch all in one move and it's much louder than she'd been
hoping for. It seems to frighten Nicole. Wynonna sits down next to her.
"Is it true?"
Nicole looks between the both of them, but her attention ends up landing on
Waverly. She shrinks under her gaze, bites her lower lip. Waverly looks like
she's about to cry.
Wynonna clears her throat. She can save Waverly this. If nothing else, she can
save her this.
"Yes," Wynonna says. She has to force her head up, like gravity is suddenly
stronger, trying to pull it down. "Yes, it's true."
For a moment, it's quiet. Nicole doesn't even flinch and Wynonna gets ready to
repeat herself, but then Nicole locks eyes with Waverly.
Nicole opens her mouth like she wants to say something. She stands up, and
walks for the door. She's collected, all pulled up into herself and together
like and armadillo, and for a second Wynonna thinks that maybe it isn't going
to be so bad. Then she turns back around.
"What the fuck, Waverly?" Nicole leans forward, seeming three times bigger than
she is. She talks directly at Waverly, like Wynonna isn't even in the room.
Like she's dead to her.
"What the fuck." She's getting louder and her voice is starting to flutter.
It's pitchy and wrong and sounds worse than nails on chalkboard, "How the
fuckcould you do this? She's your… your sister, Waverly,Jesus Christ. Your
fucking sister. I can't believe I have to say that. I can't believe this, I
can't-"
Nicole throws her hands up and back down again, clenches them at her side.
She's radiating energy; nervous and angry all at the same time and Wynonna and
Waverly both lean back, away from her. They don't know what she'll do. They
don't know if she'll strike. They don't know what might set her off.
"Baby, please, let me exp-"
"Baby?" Nicole spits, "Don't fucking 'baby' me. You're fucking your sister,
Waverly, do you even know how... Do you even care? What the fuck."
Wynonna is beginning to regret their seating arrangements. She'd thought it'd
be easier if she and Waverly sat next to each other, like there was some sort
of safety in numbers. Now, it just makes the image worse.
"Not anymore," Waverly says, "It was... years ago, it's not... it ended."
"God," Nicole's jaw drops, "Jesus, so you, really did it? I was hoping maybe
you misunderstood what I meant but you really..."
"Not anymore!" Waverly rises from the couch, "Listen, please, Nicole. It was so
long ago. We're not... we're not doing that anymore."
"Oh, well thank fuck," Nicole's voice is caught in her throat, half between a
laugh and a scream, "You're not fucking your sister anymore. you only used to
fuck your sister."
Waverly cringes every time Nicole says it. It’s so violent, so vulgar.
"Please, Nicole, don't..."
"Don't what?" Nicole spits.
"Why do you have to say it like that, it's..."
"Like what, Waverly? Like the truth? Like I'm fucking disgusted? I am!"
All Waverly can see is Curtis, the way he swore, flew off the handle
completely. How she just had to sit and bare it, couldn't say anything, digging
her nails into her nails. There's two differences this time: it's better,
because she's not alone.
It's worse, because Wynonna's there.
"Calm down, Haught," Wynonna says, and Waverly wants to tell her to shut up and
sit down, she's only gonna make this worse. Wynonna doesn't even seem angry,
but terrified. It's harder to be your sassy, unaffected self when you're so
keenly aware that you're in the wrong. "Not so loud. What if someone hears?"
It's unlikely, given that Nicole lives a little bit away from her closest
neighbours. But you never know who might overhear what, and it was already far
too far out of hand. If anyone else found out...
How the fuck did Tucker find out?
"Gee, I don't know, Wynonna. Maybe you shoulda thought about that before you
fucked Waverly."
Waverly curls more into herself with every second that it keeps going on. She
wants to disappear. The one person... the one person who could never find out.
And now.
Even Wynonna is quiet.
"God, how fucking old was she?" Nicole's tone is a bit different. Still
outraged. Still disgusted. Now... betrayed, too. She's found a new route to go
down, and Wynonna doesn't want to listen to it. "You said it ended. You said...
and then before you were gone for three years, so... Jesus, Wynonna."
Wynonna's face is all scrunched up and her hands are wrapped tight around each
other, trapping her thumbs tight in her fists. Everything Nicole is saying;
every word feels sharp. Every word hits home. She's hitting on everything,
every question Wynonna had, every problem and doubt and secret self-hating
moment.
Nicole surges forward and the room gets a little smaller. Waverly, despite
herself, is glad the heat is a little bit off herself.
"How fucking old was she?"
Wynonna looks down. She's shaking in the shoulders but her hair is too wild and
too plentiful for Waverly to be able to tell if she's crying or not. Probably,
though.
Nicole claps her hands together. Harsh, to scare them. It works. "Answer me!"
Every time Nicole moves she comes within inches of hitting one of them. Waverly
wonders how long that will last, how long before the last boundary snaps and
this turns into a flat-out fist fight in Nicole's living room. "Goddamn answer
me or I swear to GodI'll arrest both of you."
Wynonna opens her mouth but only a choked sob comes out. Nicole has no patience
for it. She lays hands on Wynonna, one above her collar bone. It's not pain,
but it could be.Oh, it could be.
"I was sixteen." Waverly interrupts. she's afraid Wynonna might just self-
combust under all that heat, "The first time... when we..."
"Fucked." Nicole supplies, a bit too eagerly. Waverly wonders if she isn't
getting something out of this, some sense of justice or vindication in watching
how Waverly flinches. In making this just a bit harder for her. "That. I was
sixteen, that's the age of consent, that's-"
"And you were twenty-two." Nicole cuts Waverly off and all the heats back on
Wynonna. "You were anadult."
Wynonna looks up for the first time in a minute but quickly drops her head
again. The light in the room feels three times to bright. It stings her wet
eyes.
"I...she was... she was legal, though, and she was..." Wynonna remembers back
to that night, to everything Waverly had said to convince her. How easy she'd
been to convince.
"She was sober that time, and it was..." Wynonna doesn't even know how to
finish that. Her words sound weak even to herself. Grasping at straws to hang
on.
"That time?" Nicole doesn't miss the slip. Wynonna bounces her leg up and down.
Nicole doesn't need to say anything more, just waits, let's the tension grow.
Eventually, Wynonna speaks.
"When I left. the first time I left. I didn't... nothing actually happened, I
mean we didn't have sex, I mean..." and then it all comes out, all her secrets.
All the worst of it. Wynonna never could tell anyone anything, not even
Waverly, with their silent shared agreement not to speak about it.
"We kissed, at the party. When I graduated. I was eighteen. Waverly was...."
Wynonna doesn't even need to say it. She just lets the awful math hang in the
air, and knows Nicole's worked it out when her hand twitches next to her
pistol.
"She was twelve?"
"Thirteen," Wynonna defends, like that makes it any better.
"Wynonna didn't rape me." Waverly says, as much to reassure Wynonna as it is to
try and calm Nicole. "That night, we stopped. I... I broke her hand, when
she..."
"When she triedto rape you." 
Waverly closes her mouth and sits back in her chair. Her cheek stings like it's
just been slapped.
"Do you know what I'd do to anyone...anyone... who did what you did? An
eighteen-year-old, an adult? A drunkthirteen-year-old? Do you know what I'd do?
What it's my job to do?"
Wynonna is acutely aware of the position of Nicole's gun on her hip. Waverly
is, too.
"It's fucking illegal. It's like... illegal three times. Do you... Jesus... do
you think it's different, because she's your sister? Do you think it's better?"
Wynonna isn't stupid enough to think it's better. But different, maybe.
Different.
Shockingly, Waverly is the last one in the room to tear up. Wynonna's tears are
all guilt and panic, Nicole's are all rage. Waverly cries because she just
feels like she can't breathe.
"I swear Wynonna, if it weren't for the baby," Nicole glances at Wynonna's
pregnant belly, "I'd kill you right now."
///
It was half rage and half bravado, but Nicole's rant had been enough to terrify
both into a full confession. So, Nicole knows everything, every dirty detail.
She'd worked them out over the most painful two hours either of the Earps has
ever had to go through, including when their homestead was attack and their
father murdered. Eventually the swearing had become less curse word and more
punctuation mark, but that didn't make it much easier.
At some point they'd migrated from the living room to the kitchen. Wynonna was
sat and the table with Nicole across from her, watching her. Waverly leaned
against the counter top, her hands pressed hard into the wood.
Nicole sat with all the facts of it in one hand, and all her options in the
other. This was the furthest from what she'd been prepared for today. She'd
thought when Tucker pulled up that he was just there to make a few more
tasteful comments, but then he told her that. Nicole wanted to call him a liar,
to throw him out of her house. She listened, though, because despite how awful
he was... something about the story was too bizarre and too specific to just be
made up.
And then Wynonna and Waverly showed up with the confirmation.
"What are you gonna do?" Waverly asks.
Her voice is smaller than Nicole's ever heard it. she rubs at her temple.
"I know what I should do," she says, "Arrest you both. Doublearrest Wynonna."
Just then, Calamity Jane wonders into the room. She stretches out her body like
she's just woken from a nap, and makes a beeline for Waverly's legs. She rubs
on them, intertwining between her legs. Apparently, she doesn't know how to
take the temperature of the room.
"If you have to. We won't fight." Waverly says. Wynonna gives her a what-the-
fuck look, which Waverly doesn't even acknowledge. "But it sounds like you
don't wanna do that."
Nicole brings a hand to the back of her head and rub where her spine meets her
skull. She hasn't had a headache like this since she was a teenager.
"No, I don't want to throw my girlfriend in prison, actually."
Nicole taps her fingers on the table, "Wynonna, though... you're another
story."
Calamity Jane meows from her place on the floor. Even she looks confused about
what's going on.
"You said... it's over, right? How'd it end?"
"Curtis found out," Waverly says, "He... caught us. It was bad. Wynonna left
town."
Wynonna tenses at the memory. That day alone was half the reason she had to
drink to forget.
"That was three years ago?"
"More than three." Wynonna adds. She knows the exact date. She could almost
count the hours.
"Alright," Nicole exhales. Her breathe is shaky and unstable but it she's less
scattered, "Alright, okay. Here's what's gonna happen." Nicole rubs her hands
on the table like she's smoothing out a map, "I don't have to tell you that
this never happens again. Or, God, maybe I do. Never," Nicole slaps one hands
down on the table, "Never fucking again. Are we clear?"
Wynonna nods as much as she can force herself to.
"Right. Second," Nicole chews on her lip like she's considering something. Her
eyes land on Waverly. She's just a bit softer, just for a second. The most
painful part is that she still loves Waverly, she'll forgive her. Wynonna can
see it. "You're not living with Wynonna anymore. Either you move out of the
Homestead or she does."
"What?" Wynonna snaps her head up, "That's...you can't - "
"I am. You two aren't living together."
"You don't have the right, you can’t-"
"You're real quick to righteous indignation, Wynonna, given that the reason for
all this is what you did."
Wynonna snaps her jaw shut. Waverly's eyes flick between the two of them like
she's watching a tennis match.
Wynonna looks to Waverly for help. There's no way Nicole will listen to
Wynonna.
"Nicole," she stops herself from saying babe, on the chance it might just make
Nicole even angrier, "I know that you're... upset."
"Upset?" Nicole raises both eyebrows, "I think I have a fucking right to be."
Waverly waves a hand in front of her face, "I know, I know, you do, I'm not..."
Waverly bites on her lip, "But it's been over for years, and where would
Wynonna go, anyway? She's the heir, she needs to be on the Homestead. It's the
only place safe from the Revenants, we can't just,"
"Then Wynonna can stay there. Alone. You move in with me."
Waverly leans back and almost hits her head on the overhead cabinet,
"…that's... a big step, don't you think?"
"And a bit soon." Wynonna adds, and Waverly shoots her a glance that tells her
to shut it.
Nicole shrugs, "I guess plans change when you find out about your girlfriend
fucking her sister.”
"Okay, just because you have the high ground, doesn't mean you have to-"
"Shut up, Wynonna," Waverly scowls at her and some part of that seems to calm
Nicole, at least a little, "It's just that.... it's not really practical for
right now, you know, and I understand that you're not comfortable-"
"Of course, I'm not comfortable-"
"-but she's my sister and I need to see-"
"Oh, so she's your sister when that's convenient? And your girlfriend when it's
not?"
"-please just let me speak!" Waverly raises her voice and Nicole is taken
aback. She pushes her chair out from the table, scraping harshly on the floor.
She doesn't seem completely outraged, though. Waverly had a certain in that
Wynonna will never have.
Nicole goes quiet for the first time in the better part of the hour. Waverly's
quite too; she hadn't expected to say that, to get this far, and now she
doesn't even know what she was so desperate for Nicole to hear.
Nicole leaves it for just long enough for Waverly to get a bit embarrassed.
"The bottom line is..." Nicole's voice is steady and sure, "You're not living
with your ex. Any ex. You wouldn't be able to live with Champ, either. Doesn't
matter, the..." Nicole does a motion with her hand and it almost distracted
from the disgust on her face, "the history, there. I'm not... that is so not
okay. How could you live together after all that? Do you really think that's
normal?"
Wynonna clears her throat but doesn't say anything.
"I'll help you get your basics," Nicole says, "The rest we'll get later. You're
not sleeping there. Not with her. Alone."
Waverly despises this part of Nicole. It's controlling, it's demeaning, it's...
it's something Champ might do, honestly. But she can't even blame her, she
can't... the facts are the facts, even if they don't feel true, and Wynonna is
her ex... girlfriend?Something.
Wynonna laughs, empty and cold. Disbeleiveing. "you're not, that's not..." she
looks to Waverly for an ally, but finds nothing, "Waverlys not a child, you
can't... you can't tell her who to live with, and you can't just separate-"
"Watch me. This is the best offer, the only way you're getting out of this
without prison. I'm being very fucking nice in giving you this option, Wynonna,
and you're really making me recon-"
"Okay!" Waverly cuts in. Wynonna just makes it worse every time she speaks, and
having her in the room when she's trying to calm Nicole down is totally
unproductive.
"I think you should go." Waverly says, "Back to the Homestead."
Nicole can't help but smirk, just a little. Waverly gravitates closer to
Nicole's side of the kitchen, and Wynonna doesn't know if it's a play or...
what.
She doesn't move.
"Go home, Wynonna," Waverly gestures toward the door with her eyes. Wynonna's
eyes are pleading. Everything Waverly wants to say, she can't. "I need to talk
to Nicole."
Wynonna leaves the room.
***** Chapter 8 *****
Chapter Summary
     It's hard to live under a microscope.
Chapter Notes
     Thank you everyone for commenting! Apparently my message actually
     worked, because I got like sixteen comments where I normally get
     about two. Please knows that that same message is implied before
     every chapter: author's don't really like asking for comments,
     because it feels desperate and annoying, but we always want them and
     they always help. Thanks again! Also: full canon divergence from here
     on out.
"That it?" Nicole plunks down the last box into the open tray of the pickup,
and dusts her hands off against her jacket as she bends back up.
"For now." Waverly approaches with a bag over her shoulder, heavy with old
books, weighing her down in the snow. She lets Nicole take it from her and put
that, too, in the tray. Waverly winces when she sees how hard Nicole puts it
down, but doesn't anything.
"I'll come back next week." Nicole says, "Just give me a list of everything to
get."
"I'll just do it, it's fine," Waverly says, "Besides, I'm the one with the
truck."
"We just had this whole conversation. You're not gonna be alone with her."
Waverly's face burns as she stares down at her feet. Her shoes are snow dusted
and shiny.
"I don't think you should be alone with her, either," Waverly says. Nicole
pauses just outside of the driver’s seat, and raises an eyebrow. “Only one of
you might leave.”
Nicole rolls her eyes, but doesn’t deny it.
///
The boxes end up stacked throughout the house, spread from the entry way
through to the bedroom. Only some of them were labelled: the rest they’ll have
to open to check. Waverly brought a bag with a couple of changes of clothes for
the first few days. She already had a toothbrush at Nicole’s.
"It's late," Nicole says, "We should... you know, get to bed. Leave the rest
until the morning."
Waverly surveys everything still left to be done, but nods anyway. She doesn't
really feel like being anything less than agreeable with Nicole. She'd hardly
made any progress in the hours she's talked to her, but it was more than she
could have hoped for if Wynonna was still there. She's managed to convince
Nicole not to sift back six years through her email history, for example, but
she still insisted on being able to check her texts from Wynonna and listen in
on any phone calls.
Nicole goes off to the bedroom first, leaving Waverly standing in the kitchen.
Seconds later, Waverly hears the water turn on as Nicole brushes her teeth.
Waverly swears her clothes had gotten tighter during the day. There was no way
her outfit feels the same as it had when she put it on that morning.
The house is quiet. A window somewhere must be open, because Waverly hears
sounds from outside way clearer than they should be. There's a coyote - what
she hopes is a coyote - howling in the distance. The wind is harsh and even it
seems to be screaming at her. Waverly pours a tall glass of water and drinks it
in one go. She drops it in the sink and joins Nicole in the bedroom, feeling
the liquid move in her stomach.
///
She ends up on her back, pinned by Nicole with her hands above her head.
They've been in this position before, lots of times, but it's different. Nicole
isn't necessarily rougher, and Waverly supposed she should be thankful for
that. Almost the opposite. All her actions feel hollow. She pushes down on
Waverly and kisses at her neck, her collar bone, but it feels mechanical.
Waverly's face pulls into a frown, which luckily Nicole misses. Her breathe is
coming out quicker, but not in a way that sounds hot or sweet. Nicole works her
was back up Waverly's body in kisses until they're face to face again.
"What did you do with her?" Nicole asks.
Waverly tries to sink deeper in the bed, like that could put more distance
between her and Nicole. Suddenly she's entirely aware of how much taller than
her Nicole is, how tiny she is in comparison, how Nicole's shadows blocks all
the light from reaching her.
"Nicole..." Waverly tries to bring a hand up but Nicole keeps pinning her down
at the wrist, "We already... I told you."
Waverly turns her face to the side and feels Nicole's hair tickling across her
jawline.
"I know you had sex with her," Another kiss on where her jaw connects to her
neck. Wet.
"Tell me how."
Waverly loses Nicole's eyes again as she ducks down and kisses under her jaw.
One of Nicole's hands releases her wrist and goes straight from the hem of her
shirt.
"N-Nic-Nicole," Waverly starts.
"What? Are you shy, now?"
Nicole lefts at the hem of Waverly's shirt and then sits back, rises off her,
so Waverly can take it off herself. It's the first time in ten minutes Waverly
takes a full breath.
Nicole nods at her to hurry.
Waverly lifts her shirt up and over her head, and tosses it to the side. It
catches on Nicole's side table, and doesn't quite make it to the floor. Nicole
descends again the second it's gone.
"Did you do this?" Nicole runs her hand up from Waverly's abdomen, lays it
between the valley of Waverly's breasts, then slowly right.
"Did she touch you here?" Nicole starts to rub Waverly though her bra. It's
light touches, but somehow that makes it feel more intense. Waverly feels it
all the way down. This is what's getting her wet tonight, apparently. She keeps
her hands where Nicole had them pinned even though Nicole releases her.
Nicole stops the touching.
"I asked you something."
Waverly nods.
Nicole pauses, and puts her hands back.
"Where else did she touch you?"
Waverly face is hot from all the blood rushing there. Her lips are an
exaggerated but natural red, partly open. Nicole kisses her.
"Where do you think?" Waverly breathes out, half chokes on the end.
Nicole raises an eyebrow.
"Where did she touch you, Waverly?"
Nicole draws her hand back down. Past Waverly's navel, to between her thighs.
She doesn't bother taking her own clothes off, or all of Waverly's.
"Everywhere."
Nicole undoes the button of Waverly’s short and opens them up just enough. She
slides two fingers inside and pushes up, up.
“Did she touch you here?” Nicole scissors her fingers out and Waverly rolls her
hips, “Inside?”
Waverly flinches, then moans.
“Take that as a yes.”
All at once Nicole withdraws, and Waverly is empty again. Nicole’s heat and
shadow leave and the bed is empty before Waverly knows what’s happening. She’s
shirtless and panting on Nicole’s bed, and Nicole is just standing beside it,
on hand tracing the curve of her alarm clock.
“What?” Waverly blinks slowly into awareness, sleep and surprised.
"What are you..."
"I'm gonna sleep downstairs." Nicole says. She takes Waverly’s shirt off its
half hanging position on the nightstand and hands it back to Waverly, but
averts her eyes, as if she hasn’t seen it all already.
"Nicole, wait, why-"
Nicole stops by the closet to grab a spare blanket off the top shelf.
"Goodnight, Waverly," she says. Waverly watches her but doesn't move to try and
stop her beyond a few more questions.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
///
They don't speak on the whole drive there. Waverly tries not to spend too much
time trying to figure out what the hell Nicole might be thinking, but end up
driving herself half-crazy with it, anyway.
Riding in the cruiser is more comfortable to her than she'd thought riding in a
police care could ever be, normally. Not today. Nicole is so focused on the
road. She doesn't even turn the radio on.
Nicole pulls up out front of the station and waits for an uncomfortable period.
Waverly gets restless, and reaches for the clip to release her seatbelt
"Wynonna's in there." Nicole says.
Waverly sinks back fully into her seat.
"She does work in there."
Waverly looks over to Nicole, but Nicole just stares straight ahead.
"And so do you." Nicole says.
"And so do I."
Nicole drums her fingers on the steering wheel, sighs. It's visible in the
cold. She didn't put the heater on the drive over, either.
"Dolls will be there, too." Waverly says, trying to get ahead of Nicole's
concerns. If it helps her to hear it... then fine. At least this way she skips
the recap in the middle.
"Yeah." Nicole says. She rubs at the bridge of her nose, "Yeah, okay."
///
They normally part ways in the hallway, but today, Nicole walks Waverly all the
way to what used to be Black Badge Headquarters.
Nicole knocks on the door once out of habit, before remembering that she's
moved past that, even if she's not officially a member of Black Badge.
Wynonna's voice answers. Waverly lays a hand on Nicole's forearm to keep her
calm.
It'd been all she could do last night to try and keep peace between the two of
them. Nicole seemed totally on the edge, and Wynonna always seemed on the verge
of making some smart comment that might push her over it.
"Hey Waves," Wynonna calls through the door. Nicole knows it's unfair to expect
that Wynonna should use aprofessional tone with Waverly, but it still rubs her
the wrong way to hear that familiarity in the nickname. any reminder of their
relationship, familial or platonic or otherwise, isn't anything Nicole wants to
see or hear.
Waverly steps through the door first and Nicole doesn’t entirely follow her.
She hangs back with one hand on the door frame, higher up than natural, making
herself look bigger than she is.
"Where's Dolls?" Nicole peers into the room, looking entirely over Wynonna.
Wynonna pauses for a second before answering. Nicole’s hardly said to word to
her in the past twenty-four hours that wasn’t a threat.
“Not in yet,” Wynonna pauses sifting through the box of files she has on the
table, midway through the letter ‘G’.
Nicole’s hand tightens on the door frame. Waverly goes to the side of the room
furthest from Wynonna, and makes a show of logging onto a computer.
“When’s he coming in?” Nicole asks.
“How should I know?” Wynonna says. She turns her attention back to the files,
flicking through them one by one with her long fingers, black painted nails.
"What about Doc?" Nicole says. Waverly looks up and tries to make it look like
she isn't she bites her lip.
"Who knows anything about Doc. Maybe at Shorty's?" Wynonna tries to sound as
nonchalant as possible, like none of this is an issue, could even be an issue,
but the way she clears her throat at the end gives her away.
"So... it's just," Nicole leans further into the room. She drops her hand from
the door frams and crosses her arms across her chest, "...just the two of you?"
Waverly shuffles uncomfortably. The computer makes some odd whirring noise, and
Waverly types something out. the keys sound way too loud.
"Yeah, that's not gonna fly. Waves, come on," Nicole gestures with her head to
the way they came from.
"Hey," Wynonna abandons her tasks again. This time she withdraws her hands
completely, losing her place in the box, "She works here, Nicole. We have to be
here. Don't be unreasonable."
"Unreasonable?" Nicole raises an eyebrow, "I think I'm being more than
reasonable, given that I only found out sixteen hours ago that you two were-"
"Jesus!" Waverly drops all pretence of acting like she's working on anything
else. "We're in the Police Station, Nicole. Maybe save the recap?"
Nicole tightens her jaw like she's trying to chew the air.
"Whatever," she says, "Then I'll stay in here too."
"Don't you have, you know, a job?" Wynonna says, "I fought the law and the law
was on a smoke break doesn't have the same ring to it." The smile Nicole gives
is small, see through, papery.
"I don't want you alone together." Nicole walks into the room and closes the
door behind her. She pulls out a chair on the opposite side of the table
Wynonna is standing at. Waverly raises both eyebrows behind Nicole's head but
Wynonna catches it, and raises hers back.
"What was that?" Nicole quickly turns back to face Waverly.
"That! Just now." Nicole pushes back on her chair and it tilts back so quick
that for a second Nicole loses her gravity. "I saw that. Wynonna making faces."
"Nicole, it was nothing, I don't know what-"
"Are you talking about me? What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything, baby, I don't know-"
"You did!" Nicole points back at Nicole, "Why'd she make that face? Are you
two, fucking," Nicole pulls her arm in and her whole body suddenly seems more
tense, like it's holding more energy than it's supposed to, "Flirting? Right
fucking over my head?"
"Nicole, no, oh my god," Waverly abandons the computers and steps closer to
Nicole. She lays on arms on her shoulder, the only zone that she's sure is safe
to touch. Waverly ducks and turns her head to find Nicole's eyes.
"Then what, Waverly? Why are you two fucking making eyes like I'm not in the
room?"
"Chill, Haught, " Wynonna says, "I know you're all defensive, but can't be
comfortable to deal with that stick in your ass."
Nicole opens her mouth and lets out a dry, humourless laugh. "Oh, wow. You
really don't wanna push me Wynonna, not today. I've got the judge on speed
dial. I can have a warrant on you faster than-"
"And Waverly, too?" Wynonna says, "You gonna throw the baby out with the bath
water?"
Waverly shifts her weight from one foot to the other. She feels Nicole and
Wynonna's eyes on her, bearing down, and doesn't meet either of them.
"Well, it's not like she's entirely innocent ei-"
The door opens wide and Dolls is in the doorway. He doesn't look up as he
enters, and almost walks straight into Nicole.
"Oh," he says, "Haught. Didn't expect you here."
"Yeah," Nicole gives one last glare are Wynonna, "I was just going. I think
Wynonna's not feeling well. Keep an eye on her, will ya?"
///
"I need to talk to you," Wynonna drops a pile of unrelated files in front of
Waverly, half using the sound to cover up what she's saying. Dolls is busy with
something on the other side of the room, but his secret agent training left his
with some pretty advanced observation skills.
Waverly takes the files from her and starts rifling through one. Wynonna walks
around to the other side of the desk like she's looking at them with her.
"Yeah, sure. I'm right here." Waverly says.
Wynonna shakes her head. "No, it's..." Wynonna tilts away from Dolls and draws
a line down to her now very obviously pregnant abdomen, "...personal."
Waverly draws her eyebrows in closer together.
"...what..."
"Alone." Wynonna says.
"Yep," Waverly pops the end sound, "That's a bit easier said than done right
now."
"I know, hot pants' got you under lock and key." Wynonna drums her fingers
on the desk. The habit isn't normally that disturbing, but the beat is just to
off to be calming. Waverly stops her by laying her small hand over Wynonna's
bigger one. Wynonna's whole body stops with it.
"Doesn't Nicole work late some days?"
"..yeah?"
"Tonight?" Wynonna leans in, hopeful.
Waverly looks away in thought for a second, looks back, and nods.
///
"Can I... get you anything?" Waverly's silhouette in the doorway, with her big
parka still on, cuts an almost comically disproportioned figure. "Water, coke,
bee-" Waverly catches herself, “Anything?”
Wynonna shakes her head, and chuckles.   She points at the still unfinished cup
of tea Waverly had given her when they arrived, refusing her coffee. “Still
good.” She pats the spot next to her on Nicole's couch. Waverly takes her scarf
off first as she enters the room and hangs it up. Her jacket she keeps on until
she reaches the couch, then takes it off and lays it across her legs. Something
about the weight of it feels necessary.
"Is the... temperature okay?" Waverly notices that Wynonna doesn't move to take
her own jacket off, "I can put it up, if you're cold, or-"
"Waverly." Wynonna says. "Talk, remember?"
Waverly clears her throat. "Right." It's odd, trying to play friendly host to a
person she isn't supposed to see in a house that isn't hers.
"So... what is it? Is the baby okay? Are you?"
"What? Oh, yeah, the ba - it's fine. Me too. I feel.... fine."
Waverly waits for her to continue. She doesn't.
"What's going on?"
“It's not Doc’s,” Wynonna sets the cup down so hard a bit sloshes over the rim.
Waverly watches it spill.
“It's not…” her brow furrows, “What?”
“The timing. It doesn't match up. Doc was… too long ago.
"The timing..." Waverly is a few steps behind her mentally, an unusual place
for her to be. "Wait, I don't... who, then?"
"It'd have been a couple months ago," Wynonna says, "I mean, best guess. And
Doc was before that."
"And you haven't since?"
"Nope," Wynonna pops the 'p'.
"So it's not Doc's?"
"That's what I said."
"Yeah, sorry, I-" Waverly shakes her head once and pauses in the middle of the
motion, "I don't understand, was it... Dolls? You weren't... I don't remember
any other guy."
"There was no guy."
"I don't... understand." Waverly says, but with the way Wynonna won't stop
looking at her, Waverly has a bad feeling that she's beginning to.
"There was no guy," Wynonna says again. Her tea’s cooling down so fast that the
steams already gone. "Waverly, there was..." Wynonna stirs it even though it's
already fine, anything to do with her hands, anywhere to look that isn't at
Waverly, "There was only you."
Waverly's face pulls into a confused sort of smile, hesitant but interested.
"Wynonna...what are you saying? That's... I don't have..."
"I think it's yours." Wynonna stops the motion of the spoon and the tea takes
longer to stop, the whirlpool she'd made in the middle settling down. "I don't
know how. I could be wrong. But it was when... with the demon. I know that
sounds..." Wynonna gestured between the two of them, "Impossible. But God,
these days, what isn't?"
"I'm..." Waverly's jaw is dropped as she looks around the room, half expecting
to find a hidden camera or someone yelling 'punkd!' "What? That's... not
right..."
"I don't know." Wynonna says, "I don't know. I just know that with the
timeline...  I'm not the best at math, but I checked seven times, Waverly. And
my calculator can't be as dumb as I am."
Waverly stares straight ahead. She’s acutely aware of how Nicole’s couch feels
different than hers. Theirs. This isn’t her home. Waverly puts her arms on the
rest and her hand creeps around the edge. She grips at it so hard she feels
like her fingernails might break.
“I don’t know… what this means.” Wynonna says. She’s talking about what it
makes their child. She’s talking about the occult. She’s talking about the
demons and the magic and the curse and the fucked up situation with Nicole, and
most of all, she’s talking about them.
Waverly pulls her jacket up against her chest. She folds it over her arm and
infront of her organs like it might somehow protect her from what she’s
hearing.
“This baby...” she asks, “What is it?”
Her eyes find Wynonna’s and Waverly is aware of how blue her eyes look. She
imagines a baby with those eyes, that nose, those lips. Those lips.
“Ours.”
Waverly watches them move so closely she almost doesn’t hear. She doesn’t even
notice she’s leaning in until she’s close enough to fall into Wynonna’s
gravity. She smells different in a way only Waverly would ever notice. Wynonna
puts a hand on her cheek. Her skin is hotter than Waverly’s. The room is dark.
And then it isn’t.
“What the fuck!”
Wynonna jumps away and too her feet. She knocks the coffee table in her
movement and some of her tea spills.
Nicole’s hand is still on the light switch. Her other is just inches from her
gun.
Wynonna gapes like a fish at Waverly. Nicole doesn’t wait for her to speak.
“Get out,” she says, “Get out! Before I fucking shoot you.”
Wynonna doesn’t even try to push it. She swipes her phone off the table and
stuffs it into her pocket while she’s walking. There are two arching doorways
from Nicole’s living room and Wynonna purposely takes the empty one, trying to
keep a wider arc away from Nicole. Nicole still almost lunges at her as she
passes.
“Get the fuck out of my house!”
Waverly pulls hers legs up onto the couch, close to her chest.
“And don’t fucking come back here.”
The door slams shut.
The shouting doesn’t stop for a good few minutes, but it gets more and more
distant. Nicole follows Wynonna outside and doesn’t stop until she’s good and
gone.
She doesn’t hear an engine start. Waverly won’t realise until hours later that
she drove them there: Wynonna must have walked home.
When Nicole gets back, the tea’s gone cold. Waverly tosses it out in the sink.
///
"Nothing happened," Waverly’s been pushing her pasta around on the plate for so
long it's started to go cold. She's hardly eaten any of it: between Nicole and
the news she might be Wynonna’s baby daddy, she doesn't have much of an
appetite. "Nothing's going to happen. It's over. We were... young."
Nicole takes a long sip from her glass of water, peering at Waverly over the
edge.
"Young. Yeah, didn't miss that part," Nicole says, "Trust me."
"I just mean... it wasn't... it was a mistake."
"No shit."
"Haven't you ever done something you regret, Nicole? Jesus. I know you hate
this and I know you hate Wynonna and maybe you hate me a little, too, but I
can't un do it."
"Can't 'un do' Wynonna. Right." Nicole finishes her food before Waverly's even
started hers.
"What do you want me to say?"
Waverly puts her knife and fork down,
"I'm sorry, Nicole. I'm sorry I ever did it. I won't do it again. I wish you
never had to find out. I wish I never did it. I don't know what else I can... I
want to make this easier for you, but you can't just keep on-"
"Keep on what?"
Waverly sighs, rubs her temples.
"If you can't forgive me, Nicole, then this is justpointless."
Calamity Jane meows from somewhere deeper in the house. Nicole looks over and
sees that her bowl is empty. Waverly follows her eyes.
"I'll get it," Waverly says. Her voice is more tired than Nicole's ever heard
it. So different from that girl in Shory's with the beer stained shirt. More
different than with the goo, too. Even when she was possessed, she wasn't this
empty.
Waverly bends down to get Calamity Jane's food from its place in the cupboard
under the sink.
Waverly looks good in her house, Nicole thinks. Her clothes are the same she's
always had, but the light is different in the kitchen at that hour than
Nicole's ever seen. Waverly knows where everything is, seems more at home than
is reasonable given the reasons for her recent move. She cooks and she cleans
and she tidies things up that Nicole doesn't even think about tidying. Her
boxes are still strewn around the house, will be for a few more weeks, but she
moves like she owns the place.
Or, not like she owns in. Like it's a temple. Like Nicole does, and she doesn't
want her angry.
"I'll do whatever I can to make it better," Waverly rises again with the cat
food bag in her hands and opens in. Her back is turned to Nicole while she
talks, "I will. I'll say sorry every day. But I need to know if,” Waverly
pauses and Nicole sees her shoulders rise and fall. She thinks it’s an
inaudible sigh, but when she talks again it’s clear she’s crying, “- If you can
forgive me, because if you really can’t, if you know you can’t, you have to
tell me or else it’s just cruel otherwise."
"Stop crying," Nicole rises from her chair, and walks up behind Waverly. It's a
bit too fast a movement and Waverly flinches the second before Nicole touches
her. Nicole touches her, turns her around, pulls Waverly into her chest.
Waverly lets out a harsh, dry sob, "I don't know." Nicole smoothes down
Waverly's hair with her hand, and looks over her head out of the window, "I
don't know if I can. I don't know what's gonna happen. I want to forgive you.
But Jesus, Wave, this is a fucking lot. I found out yesterday. I need a
minute."
Waverly pulls out of the hug. The touch is comforting but the words aren't, and
the juxtaposition feels wrong.
"This isn't something I know how to deal with. You fu-" Nicole catches the way
Waverly braces herself again, and catches her, "You slept with your sister.
God, why couldn't you just cheat like everyone else?"
“I’m sorry.”
Nicole bend down to pick up Calamity Jane’s bowl, and puts it in front of
Waverly to fill.
“I need time.” Nicole says.
Waverly nods, eagerly. “That’s okay. Anything. I’ll do anything to make it
better, baby, anything.”
The way she says it, and the way she lays a hand on Nicole’s chest afterward,
Nicole knows she’s talking about sex. Nicole takes her hand and kisses it, but
pushes her away.
“What?” Waverly says, self-conscious.
“Not tonight.” Nicole takes the food and the bowl from Waverly and starts
filling it herself.
“What about last night? Last night you didn’t… either.”
Nicole takes the bowl and puts it back in its right spot. Calamity Jane
apparently has a sixth sense for this, because she seems to materialise out of
nowhere seconds later, and heads straight for it.
“Every time…” Nicole starts. She’s more choked up than she expected to sound.
She starts again. “I think about you. And then I think about her, and what you
did. What you let her do to you.” Nicole wipes at non-existent sweat on her
brow with her sleeve pulled up over her hand. “I’m disgusted.”
Waverly can’t even pretend that isn’t agony to hear. “Disgusted,” she repeats,
“by me.”
“By what you did.”
Between this and her conversation with Wynonna, whatever the fuck that means,
it’s several hundred times too much. There’s heat just behind her eyes and
she’s barely keeping the tears back. Waverly half hopes that Nicole will end up
taking the couch again tonight, so she’ll have some time to cry. She doesn’t
want Nicole to see her cry. Not over this.
“It’s the same thing though, isn’t it?”
***** Chapter 9 *****
Chapter Summary
     A blast from someone's past.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The benefit of moving to a small town like Purgatory, with its many farmhouses
and large plots, is that no one really gives a fuck what you do on your own
land.
Nicole set up a home shooting range a couple of weeks after she moved in. She
hadn't used it much, especially in the winter when the cold in her hands made
getting the bullets in uncomfortable and shaky. Hadn't used it for months since
she met Waverly. Until the day she rose before dawn and started shooting at the
beer cans she'd drained the night before.
The hangover isn't that bad, but it's there. The second the sun starts to peak
up, it's already too cold. Nicole convinces herself that there's some science
behind the idea that cold with help with a hangover, and hopes the placebo is
enough to get her through.
She checks her gun again, checks the safety, checks it loaded, even though she
already knows it is. Nicole takes the weaver stance and shoots once, twice,
three time. She's tight in the chest, too tight, and the third misses bad.
The shots ring out clear across the morning, with no other sounds to compete
with. Nicole drops the gun and sighs: she knows all the mistakes she's making,
can hear the voice from the academy in her ear, all the problems with her
stance. They're rookie mistakes, and that's why she's so imprecise.
But Nicole doesn't want to be precise.
She just wants to fucking shoot something.
She thinks about flicking the light on and how Wynonna pulled away from
Waverly's face. She didn't see them kiss but she knows, she knows.
Nicole shoots straight for the snow under her target until the gun is almost
empty. The force close to the stand is enough to knock the can off, anyway. She
spends her last bullet on it.
Nicole walks the few feet back to where her ammo bag is and bends down to rifle
through it. She gets the rounds and rises back up.
Nicole doesn't even stack the cans back up. She'll just shoot them where they
lay on the ground, or aim for the wood they rested on. What-fucking-ever. It
doesn't matter what she shoots at. It's her house, and the one benefit of being
forced out of home at such a young age was that Nicole learned to simple
pleasure of being able to do whatever the fuck you wanted to, within reason. If
she didn't think it was a selfish, ego driver expression of toxic masculinity,
she might go hunting too. It was just her and her bullets and if she wants to
spend the whole day shooting, she will, thank you very much.
Except... it isn't just her house anymore. And while she'd been depleting her
ammo, someone else had been in the house, hearing every shot go off.
Almost on cue, Nicole hears the door open. Her back is to it from where she's
standing, and she rolls her eyes. Waverly's clothes aren't appropriate for
running.
"Nicole!" Waverly’s voice is high and, for the first time in forever, annoying.
"What's happening?" Nicole turns just before Waverly reaches her, and Waverly
seems to relax a little at seeing that she's entirely uninjured. Waverly looks
past her at the range, the cans on the floor, the splintered wood. The gun in
her hand.
She takes a step back.
"I almost had a heart attack!" Waverly clutches at her check to demonstrate.
Normally, the dramatics would be endearing. Normally.
Nicole doesn't answer her, just checks that her gun's empty and put the safety
back on.
"It's pretty early," Waverly says, "Pretty cold, too. What're you doing out
here?"
Nicole puts the gun back on her hip holster and realises just how under dressed
Waverly really is. She doesn't like the cold at the best of times, with the
benefit of a fleeces and jackets and parkas. She must have run out of the house
without stopping to think, because all she's wearing are sweatpants and a top
that makes it blatantly obvious that her nipples are hard.
Waverly crosses her arms over them and rubs at her biceps to generate heat.
Nicole zip up the ammo bag and picks it up.
"Doesn't matter," she says, "I'm done."
Nicole starting walking in the direction of the house. Waverly lingers for a
few seconds before following her.
"Wait, Nicole, what's wrong, you're-"
"What's wrong?" Nicole swings around fast. She lowers the arm carrying the ammo
bag, lets it just limp by her side. "What's fucking wrong? Oh," the chuckle is
entirely humourless, angry, sarcastic. And then even that small levity is gone,
"Wynonna was here last night, Waverly. Why was she here?"
"I.. I just, I had to see her, I-"
"Bullshit. If I didn't come home early, what would have happened?" They didn't
have much snowfall over night, because Nicole's sure she can still see the
messy tracks from where she quite literally chases Wynonna off in the snow,
"Did you invite her over to fuck you?"
"No! Jesus, I told you it was over."
"Why, then!" Nicole picks the bag back up and hikes it up over her shoulder,
"Don't act like I'm crazy for thinking it. Not with what you did. You don't get
to... to do that, and then gaslight me when I walk in on you two days later
like-"
"You didn't 'walk in on us', Nicole." Nicole doesn't need to see Waverly to
know she's got that stance, that stance that means she's standing her ground.
It's the most backbone she's shown in a while. Nicole faces her.
"What then?" Nicole demands, "Why was she here? What was so important and so
secret you had to go behind my back?"
"It was private."
"Private? Oh, no no no," Nicole says, "No, fuckthat. You forfeited private. I'm
not going to wrestle your phone out of your hands, and I'm not gonna beat a
confession out if you, but there's a fucking price for keeping secrets.”
When all of this started, Waverly never thought they'd get here. Nicole, with
her constant respectfulness. Always there, never pushy. She even respected
Champ, up until the moment she didn't. It was all trust, all truth, all the way
through. This isn't the same relationship it was a week ago. They might as well
be two different people.
"You said, last night, that you wanted me to trust you again," Nicole says,
"You said you'd do anything to make it better. Prove it. Prove I can trust you.
Just tell me what she was doing here."
The cold gets worse and worse with every second she's out there. Waverly forces
herself to fight through it, and hopes her shudder doesn't come off as
weakness.
"She needed to talk to me about the baby." Waverly says.
"The baby?" Nicole repeats, "What about the baby?"
"Just... the baby."
"Waverly!" it's so unnecessarily loud that Waverly actual jumps back, "Stop
fucking lying. If you want this to work, Waverly... if we want this to
work...If anything can be salvaged…" Nicole tucks an errant strand of hair
behind her ear, "then you have to be completelyhonest with me. I'll find out if
you're not. I mean, God, I already know the worst of it." Nicole says.
Waverly touches the side of her face. Her skin is feels colder than metal.
Nicole leans in, narrows her eyes.
"Right, Waverly?"
Waverly coughs and wrings her hands out.
"Right?"
"I think the baby's mine."
Nicole shoots back up straight in a second flat. "The...the... what?"
"Wynonna's baby," Waverly nods, "something with the demon. When she was
possessed. I don't know. Might be wrong."
"Wh..wha...what do you... huh?"
Seeing Nicole that confused - Nicole who only just found out about demons
walking on earth, who took the news in her stride -  is something.
"You don't have a dick," Nicole says, when her face unsticks enough to talk,
"What? I mean, I've had a look under the hood. I'd know."
Waverly wants to roll her eyes but stops herself.
"Yeah, I don't. But I transferred to demon to her. Things happen when demons
get involved. Would that really be the strangest thing?"
"How the... How could that happen?"
Waverly shrugs her shoulders. "We don't even know if it did happen, we don't
know anything, Wynonna just thinks that because of the timing tha-"
"The timing?" Nicole’s confusion makes way into anger. She doesn't understand
entirely what's going on, but she understands where it's headed, what's it
implied. Waverly hadn't even thought about what she was saying. "What does she
mean, the timing?"
Waverly swallows. Her hands are sweaty despite the cold and she wipes them down
on her pants.
"She... she means, that..."
"You said it was over."
"It is!" Waverly says.
"No, that doesn't- you said the timing, what do you mean, what.. the timing?"
Waverly doesn't say anything. She casts her eyes down. It tells Nicole enough.
"You lied," Nicole says, "You fucking lied. You slept with her. You said it
ended years ago, you said it was over, you said-"
"It's over, baby, I swear it's over, I didn't lie, I-"
"Jesus, stop fucking digging yourself deeper, Waverly," Nicole walks closer to
Waverly until Waverly feels the need to back up. "How long ago? When did you
fuck her? Did you - " Nicole rubs at her temple and Waverly can see the tension
in her arm, all wound up like a spring. She wants to hit.
Waverly is afraid.
"Did you fuck her while we were together?"
Waverly's mouth gapes.
"It wasn't... it wasn't like that Nicole, I wouldn't... I'd never hurt you like
that, I-"
“Wouldn’t you?” Nicole spits, “Two days ago, I would’ve agreed. I would’ve…
you’re the nicest person in Purgatory, remember?”
Nicole drops her arms down by her side. She doesn’t even need to strike.
Waverly flinches with her whole body.
“But now? Oh,” Nicole shakes her head, “I don’t know anything about what you
woulddo. You’re notwho I thought you were. Not who I fell in love with.”
Waverly stops dead in her tracks. For Nicole, realising what she’s said is
enough to slow her down, too. It’s the first time she’s said it, the first… and
Waverly can’t be happy. Can’t even be relieved.
Waverly wonders how this all got so ugly.
“I was unconscious,” Waverly says, “when it…happened. I didn’t cheat on you.”
Nicole backs off immediately. It’s not that the tension leaves her, just that
it shifts.
“You were…unconscious…during sex?”
Waverly nods.
“Jesus, Waverly, you know there’s a word for that.”
“Yeah,” Waverly says, “It wasn’t her. She was possessed. Neither of us were...
were there, really.
"Jesus. This whole situation is beyond fucked up."
"Yeah, I know."
Waverly's face is red from the cold and her eyes are just a bit glassy. Her
hair's still messed from sleep, and if Nicole stays quiet she's sure she can
hear her teeth chattering. Waverly looks so... so small, so feminine, so young
and lost in the winter morning. It doesn't make sense.
"So, will the baby have… you know.... there are issues, when the parents
are..." Nicole gestures with two hands, brings them close together, rubs them.
For a hand gesture, it's pretty graphic.
"I don't.... know," Waverly says, "I don't know anything. We don't know if
that's it, we wouldn't know until we did a blood test who the fa....other
parent, actually is. If it even has one, I don't know."
Nicole catches that, and raises an eyebrow. "Wynonna's not exactly the Virgin
Mary."
Waverly just shrugs her shoulders. "I don't know much more than you do. But
I’ve learned to stop writing things off as impossible.”
Nicole has to give her that. All of this is not anything she'd expected to ever
deal with. Would an immaculate conception really be all that strange?
"Besides," Waverly says, "We still don't know if I’m, you know, blood related."
Nicole wishes she could find solace in that. She doesn't know the truth, if
Waverly is an Earp or not, no more than Waverly does. But she has a hunch, and
her hunches are half the reason she graduated top of her class in the academy.
But even if she's right, even if they don't share blood.... she tries to
imagine it, let's the idea sit in her head. Her with Wynonna, Wynona's head
between her legs, her fingers, their sounds.... and it doesn't really matter
what's in their blood. It doesn't make it any easier.
Waverly sure says it like it's important, though. She pauses to let Nicole
comment, and seems disappointed when she doesn't.
"So...you need a blood test, right?"
"Well, that would be a thing to do, except..."
"Except?"
"It's kind of a sticky situation. Can't exactly have our local clinic
performing this kind of paternity test."
"Oh," Nicole rubs at her arm, "Yeah, that would be..." Nicole trails off. Her
eyes flick off in thought and Waverly doesn't miss it.
"What is it?" she asks.
"I think.... I know someone who can help."
///
Shae's phone lights up with her wife's name. It's the first time in months and
she knows its not a casual call. She's with a patient, it's unprofessional, and
she knows she might get chewed out for it later.
She has to take it.
Shae steps out into the hallway and looks at the screen again. She's taken the
phone of Nicole off, so it's just her lock screen. Her name is bare and logical
and utterly un-emojid.
"Nicole?" she answers.
“Hey, Shae,” Nicole’s hand is wrapped tight around her phone and holding it
close to her cheek. It’s hotter than her body, probably the hottest thing a
mile in any direction. “I need your help.”
///
"We really should do this in a lab" Shae says for the fifth time that hour,
"Even if I sterilize it, and I have, there's just... so much more bacteria
here. And I'll have to go stop by the chemist anyway, to drop the sharps off,
it'll be a lot easier if we just-"
Shae turns around with the prepped needle in her hand and looks at the
expression of the two women in front of her. Her wife, and her wife's new
lover.
"Never mind. Arm out."
Waverly complies wordlessly. She extends her left arm because Shae's on her
left side, and Shae directs her to lay out across the rolled-out tea towel
she'd set up for support. It's all so...inelegant.
"Make a first for me." Shae says.
Waverly does, and the tendons in her arms jump. Shae holds the needle close
enough that Waverly can see just how big it is. She shifts, and Nicole gives
her a squeeze on her other arm.
"You'll be fine."
Shae taps at the crook of her arm to find the vein. She wraps fabric around it
and pulls it tight with a clip.
"Small pinch." Shae says, "three, two-" Shae slips it in before she reaches
one, "Release the fist."
Waverly has to look away as her blood starts to flow. It rises against gravity.
Shae holds the needle still. she's done these a hundred times before. A
thousand.
It's silence throughout the house. Shae's holding Waverly's arm still and
Waverly's holding onto Nicole's shoulder. Shae's eyes drift to their point of
contact. Her wife. Not really her wife. Nicole hadn't worn her ring long enough
to get a tan line.
"Almost done." Shae withdraws the needle and covers it quickly with a piece of
cotton. "Hold it here." She instructs Waverly to keep it in place while she
finds a plaster. If this was her office, she wouldn't have to dig around like
this, it'd be so much easier if she could just do this all the right way.
But Nicole had insisted on this. Vehemently. She knows Nicole well enough to
know that means there’s a good reason. Shae hopes it isn’t anything illegal, at
least, but she doesn’t really see how a paternity test could be used to subvert
the rule of law in any major way. She hopes not. No need for this situation to
get any more complicated.
"Alright," Shae takes the vials in her hand and lays them out.  They're warm in
her hand. "That's you done. I just need to see the... the other mother," Shae
says. Waverly pulls her arm back and out of Shae's reach. Nicole lets go of
Waverly's arm too. Shae watches them. She's got more degrees than is strictly
reasonable for her age and even she can't figure out what's going on there.
Nicole had been purposely vague on the phone, but between a still married woman
and her girlfriend and her girlfriend's baby momma... Shae supposes she sees
why Nicole had insisted on not doing this through conventional means.
"Before I go, do you need anything else?" Shae checks over the blood test form
while she waits for the answers she expects to hear.
"Anything...else?" Waverly looks at Nicole like, 'do you know what she's
talking about?'. Shae looks up from the form. She clears her throat.
"I mean, your hormones. I can write you a script while I'm here.”
"My...hormones?"
"Yes..." Shae's voice wavers more and more by the second, "Your... the
estrogen?"
Waverly sits up. Shae finally finds the plaster, and moves Waverly's hand away
so she can put it over the puncture mark.
"My... what? A script?"
Waverly's eyebrows are knitted together in the middle and Shae realises she has
no idea what she's talking about. Nicole seems only a little more in the know.
"Oh, sorry," Shae says, "I must've been confused. Miscommunication on the
phone. So you're the pregnant one?" she asks Waverly.
Waverly shakes her head, "No, I'm... that would be a surprise." Waverly's tone
is too sharp and the words are too quick and the situation is too serious and
too odd for it to be funny at all.
"Sorry, I'm confused," it's Shae's turn to sit back, "I thought you were
transgender?"
“What?” Waverly visibly winces. She’ll only be embarrassed later that she
reacted to it like an accusation, like it was something to be ashamed of, “No,
I’m…” Waverly gestures down her body, “I’m not trans.”
“You’re not?”
Waverly shakes her head. “Yeah, I think I’d know.”
Shae hates this. Feeling stupid. She always has. It’s half the reason she
became a doctor, so she’d always be the smartest one in the room.
“Right, of course, I just… when Nicole told me I’d be doing a paternity test
for two women…”
Waverly's mouth makes an 'O' as the pieces sink in. She gives Nicole a
withering look after her realization settles: apparently Nicole really hadn't
done a lot of explaining. Waverly supposes she can't blame her.
"No, I'm not trans." Waverly says again.
Shae looks down at her papers.
"You're.... Waverly, right?" She checks the dates and the details, and starts
wondering how she could have mixed it up.
"Yep." Waverly says. She takes her arm off of the towel and rests both her
hands in her laps. The dull ache that Shae warned her might happen is already
starting.
"Right," Shae says, "So then..." she reads from the paper "... Wynonna... is
trans?"
Waverly shakes her head.
"I don't understand." Shae says with finality. all her medical training is
failing her and as much as she hates it, she admits defeat.
Nicole moves closer to her and for a second it's like their back in Vegas. That
mannerism, her impeccable ability to detect and understand suffering... that
hasn't changed. For the first time since she sat down, Shae actually feels like
she's looking at Nicole.
“I mean, am I missing something? That’s not possible.”
Waverly makes a sound. "You obviously aren't from Purgatory."
Shae skips over that and tries to fall back on analytics, but nothing is adding
up.
"What's going on here, Nicole?" Shae asks, because it's clear that Waverly
isn't going to be much help in that situation.
"Honestly... we were sort of hoping you could tell us..." Nicole drops her
eyes. Even sitting down, she's taller. God, she still smells the same. Shae
leans forward. That's not the answer she wanted to hear.
But she is nothing if not a doctor.
"We just need you to run the test. If it's not... a match, then this doesn't
even matter."
Shae sighs. She detaches the needle from the last vial and drops it in the old
ice cream container she'd been forced to use for the sharps.
"Alright, then. Time to see the other one."
Waverly grabs her purse off the table next to her and tucks it under her arm.
Nicole gives her a half smile as she stands up.
 The second before Waverly disappears up the stairs, she sees Nicole reach for
her phone and start typing something out. They've already planned how this was
going to go. It was one of Nicole's terms. The whole thing was so micro managed
Waverly almost expected Nicole to make them all run drills.
She'd go first while Wynonna waited outside. then Nicole would text Wynonna,
and Waverly would head upstairs, and Wynonna would be in and out without the
two of them other seeing each other. That was the plan, and it would have
worked, if Wynonna hadn't been Wynonna.
Wynonna was waiting right outside the door, leaning against the door instead of
in her car like she was supposed to. When her phone dinged, she didn't even
check it was from Nicole, didn't even open the message before she let herself
in. Wynonna entered just as Waverly was at the bottom of the stairs, and the
motion would have caught Waverly's attention even if she hadn't been hoping for
it.
There's a second when they just look at each other. Wynonna stills, and from
that angle, in that jacket, Waverly almost forgets what's growing inside her
that's got them all gathered together under the same roof. Her baby. Their
baby. Waverly doesn't have the results yet but she knows, because with her life
and Wynonna's life how could it be anything but the worst-case scenario?
It's a cliche, but Wynonna really is glowing. Her skin is still tight and a bit
blue from the cold and wind outside, but just under it is life, somuch of it.
Wynonna opens her mouth, and Waverly starts taking the steps two at a time. She
leaves Wynonna in the hallway, enroute to a stranger and a woman who hates her.
Wynonna checks for Peacemaker, and tries to remember when she last loaded it.
She seems to be doing that a lot, these days.
///
“Okay, Wynonna…” Shae scans the details at the top of the form, “Wynonna….?”
“Earp. Wynonna Earp.”
“Earp?” Shae reaches for the folder where she put Waverly’s form. Nicole stops
her.
“Yes,” Nicole says. Shae hears her grind her teeth, and has to remind herself
that Nicole’s bad habits aren’t her business anymore. “Earp.”
Wynonna and Nicole are sitting as far as possible from each other while still
being in the same room. Shae doesn’t like that they both have guns.
Shae reaches for a fresh, sealed needle. Her doctors bag still smells of the
cool sterility of her usual office. Smells of clean. She tries to go about it
as professionally as she can, not thinking about the names and what they mean,
and fails entirely. As if it hadn’t been complicated enough on the face of it.
“Okay, Wynonna. Arm out, make a fist.”
Her job is gory details, but honestly. 
Chapter End Notes
     Thanks again for your comments guys, keeps me young and spry!
     I've had a thought. If I were to start taking commissions around this
     sort of thing, would anyone bite? I do commissions on my main ao3/
     tumblr, but because I specifically have this separate to avoid hate
     on my main, I'd have to set stuff up to do it and I don't want to do
     that if there's no audience. Price would be about 1c/word, starting
     from $1 for 100 words. I haven't even decided if it's something I'd
     do but... let me know if any of you think that's something you might
     be sort of interested in.
     And I know this says one more chapter left. That's a goddamn lie lmao
     even I don't know how long this will end up being.
***** Chapter 10 *****
Chapter Summary
     Some answers, more issues.
Chapter Notes
     So I made a tumblr . Come talk to me!
     Again, comments mean the world.
     I have a few other things in the works too. When this gets to 150
     comments & kudos, I'll post another one shot.
"Okay, Shae, drive safe. Sometimes you can't see the ice. Takes the curves real
slow."
Nicole lingers in the doorway after Shae leaves, redistributing the informaiton
she'd almost learned the very hard way. She doesn't feel like a native
Purgatorian yet, but compared to Shae, she's downright local.
"Thanks, Nic," Shae's got the vials of everything stashed away in her bag.
She's a little grateful for the cold; at least it means she's in less of a rush
to get everything refrigerated.
Shae's car is a nice model. Doctor salary type model. Nicole remembers going
with her to buy it, the argument there, the argument on the way back. Shae gets
behind the wheel and it purrs as it starts. Nicole closes the door, locking the
cold out.
Wynonna left five minutes ago, very eager not to be alone with Nicole.
"So, we'll know in a week?" Waverly's voice comes from behind her.
"That's what she said."
Waverly nods. She knew that. She just wanted to break the silence.
"So... that's your wife?"
"Yep," Nicole says. She doesn't feel the need to explain more. Waverly knows
it's more a technicality than anything, already. anything more is just fishing,
and Nicole won't bite. she doesn't even feel bad.
"She's... really pretty," Waverly pushes herself lightly off of the counter and
crosses to Nicole's side of the room. She would lay her chin on Nicole's
shoulder, but she's not tall enough, or Nicole is too tall.
"She is." Nicole doesn't soften herself as Waverly approached. Waverly leans
into her side but Nicole stays.
"Is that why you married her?"
Nicole sighs. She turns, and it forces Waverly to stop leaning on her. "Part of
it. It was Vegas, you know."
Waverly nods thoughtfully, but she doesn't know. She's never been to Vegas.
She's never left Purgatory, so all she has are stories.
"And it was partly a 'fuck you', too.”
Waverly nods again. That, she can understand.
"I mean, it was legal, and she has issues with her parents and I had issues
with mine, and there we were, together, and it just..." Nicole puts her hands
out to mime an explosion and Waverly grabbed them mid motion.
"Did it end badly?"
Nicole looks at where their hands are joined.
"As well as a divorce can go, I guess. Shae's not... bitter," Nicole says,
"Well, but I guess tou could figure that out. Given what she just did."
Waverly nods, and runs a thumb over Nicole's knuckles. Nicole's still standing
taller than is necesaary, especially when height already isn't a problem for
her. She hasn't relaxed since Wynonna was here, chest still puffed, traces of
adrenaline and anger still lingering. Waverly leans in until her head just
touches Nicole's chest.
"And she's not gonna... tell anyone, right? I mean, about..."
"The incest."
Nicole says it just as Waverly’s exhaling, and her breathe turns shaky in her
mouth. She tenses against Nicole's body, then pulls away.
"Just calling a spade a spade." Nicole says. Waverly retreats back to the
counter and leans against it.
"It must feel good," she says, "Having the high ground."
Nicole raises an eyebrow. "Excuseme?"
"I just mean. You can say what you want. And I can't say anything back. Cause,
well, you're not wrong. Doesn't mean you have to..."
"Have to what?"
Waverly shakes her head. She doesn't want this fight. She's already so tired,
she's so used to Nicole's comments, she might as well bare it.
"Nothing. Nevermind. So, will she? Tell anyone?"
"No," Nicole answers immediately, "Shae's not that type of person. Or that type
of doctor. There's a confidentiality thing, you know."
"Yeah I know," Waverly reaches up to her hair to play with one loose lock, "But
this wasn't exactly an official visit."
Nicole sighs, and lets herself soften. She doesn't want to get soft: Waverly is
right, there's a certain pleasure in being stoic on the high ground, on being
right and revelling it. But this is Waverly. This is... Waverly, before
anything else, before crimes or history or complications.
"She won't tell anyone. Don't worry. You're okay."
Nicole opens her arms and pulls Waverly in. Waverly starts to shake almost the
very second Nicole gets her arms around her. Nicole's a whole head clear of
Waverly, and rests her chin on Waverly's head while she shakes and sobs.
Nicole isn't sure what to do with her hands. She puts them on Waverly's back
and doesn't move them.
"It's... okay," Nicole says, and the words sound hollow, even to herself, but
hopes Waverly gets something from this.
Nicole's not sure how she got her, consoling her girlfriend about fucking her
sister, assuring her she was fine.
The things you do for love.
Nicole holds her for so long that it gets uncomfortable, physically. She thinks
that surely, surely, Waverly must be cried out by now. Her shirt's so wet that
she's sure she won't have to wash it for another week. Eventually, the shakes
become sniffles, and Waverly starts to hold her own weight again.
"Is this what 'trying' look like?" Waverly asks.
"I hope not forever," Nicole says, "That'd be..."
Nicole realises that she's never seen Waverly cry this much. Not even close.
Even she can't make ugly crying look good. Nicole searched for tissues but
can't find any, so hand Waverly a roll of kitchen towels instead.
She looks down at herself and frowns. She'll have to change her shirt.
Waverly excuses herself to the bathroom to wash her face. While she's gone,
Nicole pulls out her phone, and sees the message she missed from Shae.
'It was good seeing you again, even under these circumstances'
Nicole smiles down at her phone but it breaks when she hears the water stop
running. Moments later, there's the door, and then Waverly's back in the room.
"What's that?" Waverly gestured to her phone.
Nicole types out a response.
'You too xo'
She stuffs it back in her pocket like it's too hot in her hand.
///
Wynonna's alone in a doctor's office, the lights too bright and her belly too
big too fast. The sheer shock of waking up and having a part of her body be so
different, so divergent from the body map she was used to... it was awful. She
still isn't sure she'd adjusted.
Pregnancy is just uncomfortable, no matter how well you eat or how much
prenatal yoga you do, and Wynonna isn't doing any of those things. She's not
drinking though, either, for the first time in a long time, for the first time
since she started. The clear headedness is nice, but... not worth it,
ultimately.
The door opens and Wynonna has to fight the reflex to cover herself. Her belly
is exposed with her shirt pushed up and it all feels to unnatural, she doesn't
want to be seen like this, even though it's the same doctor who left her there
like that.
“Alright, sorry about that,” the doctor sets down a clipboard she’d forgotten
in the other room and went to fetch, “Are you ready?”
Wynonna nods. She doesn’t know if she can speak.
The doctor hovers over her, “This’ll be a bit cold.”
She squeezes out the gel and spreads it across Wynonna’s abdomen. She’s right.
It is cold. Wynonna shifts and wiggles until the doctor tells her to stand
still.  Wynonna watches the image appear on the screen, black and pale blue. It
looks… exactly like every ultrasound she’s ever seen on tv.
“Would you like to know the sex?”
Wynonna shakes her head on impulse. Stops. Considers. She’s sure Waverly would
want to know. She’d want to decorate, buy clothes, brain storm names…
“Oh no, you’re crying, are you… are you alright?” The doctor is at her sides in
seconds and offering her a tissue. Wynonna takes it with a soft ‘thank you’
that even she can’t really hear.
Wynonna skips over the question of the baby's sex entirely and starts to get
dressed. All she can think about is Waverly. Waverly whose baby she might be
carrying, Waverly who she can't see anymore, Waverly who's living with her
girlfriend while Wynonna's alone at the appointment.
The doctor puts a hand on Wynonna's shoulder. she would shrug it off, but
something about the pregnancy has made her slightly more averse to being rude.
Slightly.
Wynonna leaves the room, away from the doctor's instructions to make another
appointment.
///
She knows she’s not supposed to drink. She can hear the doctor’s voice in her
head. Hear Waverly’s voice. Fuck, even Nicole doesn’t care about herwellbeing,
but she’d sure as hell take Wynonna to task about the baby’s health.
Whatever.  Waverly got the school and the friends and the graduation cap and
the girlfriend and the forgiveness. Wynonna gets the whiskey and the gun.
///
Waverly shaves everywhere. It's a goddamn hassle and she cuts herself three
times, but only at the knees, not anywhere important. If Nicole's finally gonna
have sex with her again then she's going to make sure it's perfect, make sure
she's perfect, make sure there's no reason Nicole won't come back and back and
back.
Waverly spends longer on her makeup and hair than is at all reasonable.
When she gets out of the bathroom it's already past ten and she worries that
Nicole might be able to legitimately use the excuse that she's too tired. She
walks just a bit faster, and pauses the make sure Nicole is still in the living
room where Waverly has last seen her. She is.
Waverly looks down to check her outfit again. The same cheerleading get up
she'd worn in high school. Nicole seemed to like it well enough earlier, and
Waverly was counting on it working again.
She'd worn it for Wynonna, too. Not so much as a performance, just that Wynonna
picked her up after cheer practice and she didn't take it off before they had
sex. Waverly didn't miss that Wynonna felt a bit rougher, a bit faster, a bit
more excited. Waverly had made a note of it, started wearing it more often.
But Nicole doesn’t need to know that.
Waverly steps into the room. She spots the whiskey Nicole has set out on the
table, and wishes she'd had some of her own before trying this.
Nicole doesn't seem to notice her straight away. Waverly leans against the
doorway in the most enticing pose she can muster. She clears her throat.
Nicole looks up from her phone, and smiles for a fraction of a second before
she remembers that she's not supposed to. Then she sees what Waverly's wearing,
and smiles again.
"Oh? What's this?" Nicole puts her phone on the coffee table. She's started
leaving it face down.
"Just..." Waverly shifts her weight with a wiggle of her hips, "...found this
old thing." Waverly steps deeper into the room and Nicole sits back on the
couch, but not like she's trying to get away. So far, so good.
"I don't have my Spotify linked to your speakers," Waverly says, "So we'll have
to skip the strip tease. Music is half the magic."
Waverly walks right up to Nicole and transitions onto the couch, hovering over
Nicole with her knees on either side of her thighs. She can’t stop watching
Nicole’s hands, half expecting her to stop her at any given moment.
She doesn’t. Waverly hadn’t really expected to get this far.
She leans in just as Nicole leans up, and it’s the first open mouth kiss she’s
had in a week. It’s good. Waverly falls forward and into Nicole’s chest, and
Nicole wraps an arm around her back.
“Bedroom?” Waverly asks, out of breath. Nicole shakes her head.
Waverly immediately pulls back. The disappointment comes off of her in waves,
as hard as she tries to suppress it. She bites her bottom lip and makes to
leave. Her heads down and her cheeks are burning.
Nicole grabs her wrist.
“Wait,” there’s something dangerous in her voice that Waverly doesn’t think
she’s ever heard directly before. Overheard, maybe, when she’s dealing with
criminals or on the phone with someone she hates. Never directed at her, “On
the couch.”
Waverly nods numbly, and collapses on the couch next to Nicole. She goes for
the hemline of her shirt, to lift it up and off. Nicole stops her.
"No," she says, "Leave it all-" Nicole pauses for a second, glances down at
Waverly's skirt, "Are you wearing underwear?"
Waverly shakes her head no.
"Leave it all on, then."
Nicole turns around and kisses Waverly so that Waverly's below her, and
Nicole's pushing her deeper into the couch. Waverly moans, too loudly for just
a kiss. Embarrassing. But she's been so touched starved that anything,
anything... she just wants someone to touch her.
Nicole, she reminds herself. she wants Nicole to touch her.
Nicole’s hand is on her thigh and inching up higher, higher. Normally the
foreplay is longer but Waverly doesn't mind. Nicole uses her other hand to pull
Waverly's thighs wider apart, and the skirt rides up to accommodate.
Nicole hands down feel like her own, and Waverly has an image of Champ doing
the same thing. She pushes up and find's Waverly's centre.
"You waxed?" Nicole says.
"Just shaved," Waverly says. She doesn't even finish before Nicole has one
finger inside of her, and she keeps pushing deeper, deeper. Waverly tries to
help by getting her hips at the night angle, but something about that seems to
ignore Nicole because she grabs Waverly's thigh with her free hand and
positions her back.
"I want you on your belly." Nicole says, and pulls her finger out. Waverly
quickly complies, though this isn't anything they've done before. She lays
herself out on the couch while Nicole gets up off the couch.
"Wait there. Just like that."
Nicole turns and heads in the direction of the bedroom and leaves Waverly
there, exposed against the cold. This isn't something they do, something
they're into, but Waverly still really doesn't like the idea of disobeying.
It’s enough to keep her from going after Nicole, even as the minutes drag on
and she stops being quite so wet and she starts to imagine the front door
opening, someone coming in. Wynonnacoming in.
Waverly's just starting to think that Nicole changed her mind, or that the
whole thing was just a cruel joke and she's not coming back, when she senses
Nicole's shadow in the door way. She moves in Waverly's peripheral vision,
Waverly who can't lift her head to look without it being too uncomfortable.
Even without looking directly, Waverly can tell Nicole is walking different.
More swagger. Nicole gets on the couch and lays herself over Waverly's back and
Waverly knows why.
The strap on had scared her at first, so they hadn't used it a lot. Nicole
seemed to be keen on the idea, though, so Waverly had agreed. she was worried
it would just be how it'd been with Champ, and that's not something she wanted.
Nicole's hand snakes its way back up again to check if Waverly's still wet
enough. She frowns when she feels she isn't. Nicole works one finger in again,
then two, deeper. Waverly wills herself to get wetter, faster.
“Are you ready, babe?”
She isn’t not entirely, but she nods, and Nicole pulls her short skirt the rest
of the way up her ass. She pulls her hips up and grabs the shaft with one hand,
lines up, and slips in. Waverly’s hands grab at the edge of a cushion while
Nicole starts thrusting.
It takes a little while to feel good, but it does, and Waverly start working
her hips back in rhythm. Nicole grabs her around her waist and starts pulling
her back into the thrusts. Waverly looks back, over her shoulder. Nicole sounds
focused, and she always looks good when she’s focused.
“No, don’t look at me,” Nicole says. Waverly immediately looks away, like
closing a laptop with porn on it, “Look straight ahead at the wall.”
A second later, Nicole’s hand is in her hair and pulling her head up to force
her in that direction. Nicole thrust into her, again, harder, and it pulls on
her hair painfully.
It’s painful. She knows Nicole would stop if she asked her too, but she won’t
ask. She won’t ask.
Nicole grabs at Waverly’s hip and if she had longer nails she’s cut through the
skin. She’s never done it like this, but Waverly doesn’t stop her so she keeps
going harder, deeper.
Eventually it feels like a dare, a challenge against herself. How much can I do
before she stops me, how far can I push it, what’s her breaking point.
But Waverly just doesn’t stop her.
Nicole gets tired before she gets off, and tells Waverly to ride her. She does,
with reckless abandon, and they both cum with nails in each other’s backs.
///
Wynonna’s reallynot supposed to drive in her condition. There’s not much that
can stop her, though. She can see smoke coming from Nicole’s chimney. There’s a
letter from the blood lab burning a hole in her pocket.
///
After, she's sore between her legs. That she expected. Less expected is the
ache in her fingers from curling them so tight, or how her arms feel like
they're too light or too heavy every time she tries to reach for something.
Nicole redressed in a rush, but at least she really did have an excuse. Small
town police department means a real understaffing problem, means Nicole has to
deal with almost everything hands on. It's odd that a domestic happens at
twelve noon, but Nicole figures that rampant assholery doesn't sleep.
"Where my other boot?" Nicole scans the floor and starting picks up Waverly's
clothing and tossing it, even though she knows they wouldn't be able to
disguise the shape of her shoe. She's walking around with only one on, with a
thud tap thud tap thud tap that throws off her gait.
"Behind the couch, I think," Waverly crosses her legs as Nicole comes closer.
Nicole spots it and just as she's bending down, the front door open. Wynonna
doesn't even knock because she knows she won't be let in.
Waverly can tell she's drunk immediately. It takes Nicole a little longer,
between reaching for her gun and trying to figure out if it's a burglar or one
of the widows or, even worse, Wynonna. Her gun's not on her hip, still in her
belt laid across the table, and Waverly can't even blame her for going for it.
That's not because it's Wynonna. When someone literally bursts into your house,
that's just practical.
"Wynonna?" Nicole says, but they all already know it's here, "What the fuck are
you... are you drunk?"
Wynonna's next few steps into the house confirm Nicole's suspicions,
wordlessly.
"Jesus, you know you can't drink, I mean I knew you were fucking stupid and
irresponsible but-"
Wynonna steadies herself against the door way. She raises her arm, shaking, and
points at Waverly. It’s only when Wynonna looks at her that Waverly notices how
naked she still is, and pulls the cover off of the back of the couch to wrap it
around herself.
“Did you just finish fucking her?” Wynonna asks, as if it wasn’t entirely
obvious.
“Wynonna, you need to go home,” Nicole is using her cop voice, the one she uses
interchangeably on every other drunkard in Purgatory. It could be a lot worse.
“Does she call you daddy too?”
A wave of scare-shame runs down Waverly’s spine and she twists her fingers into
the sheet. She swallows and tries to find where her clothes have gone, sucked
somewhere in between the couch cushions.
“What?”
“Yeah, Haught,” Wynonna bangs once on the frame but only accomplishes hurting
her own hand, “the way you swagger around. The gun. The height.”
Two sets of eyes flick over to Waverly. “Yeah,” Wynonna says, a million miles
away, like she’s not talking to Nicole, “Yeah, I bet she does.”
Nicole still only has one boot on. The other’s dropped beside the coffee table,
below her gun belt.
“She called me daddy too, you know. Her idea, actually, so don’t twist like
it’s some perversion I pushed onto her,” Wynonna’s breathe is hot and
unpleasant and she feels it at the back of her teeth when she speaks, “I’d bend
her over something and push inside and she’d moan, she’d beg, daddy, daddy,
yes.”Wynonna’s voice turns obscene and with the alcohol colouring it, it’s on
point, “She loved it. Got her off like fucking noth-”
Nicole slaps her. Wynonna stumbles three steps back and hits the wall. Photos
of people she doesn’t recognize jitter with the impact. Nicole doesn’t go for
another slap and Wynonna doesn’t try to fight back, but she doesn’t stop,
either.
"I had her first," it comes out all slurred together, but Nicole's listening
close enough that she doesn't miss a single word, "No matter what you do, I'll
always be first. I'll always be... I was before Champ, too, the very first. You
can't take that from me. You can take her but you can't take the past, it
happened, I was first, I was her first, I was-"
Wynonna falls back against the wall so hard that Nicole worries she's taken out
some of the plaster. She slumps down and slides down it, her shirt getting
caught and riding up as she collapses. Her belly stops her from pulling her
knees in but she tucks herself in as closely as she can, keeping her limbs
close around her torso's orbit.
"I was... I was..." Wynonna's eyes find Waverly's. Between them are all the
conversations they never had, everything Wynonna had put off and off and
thought it didn't even matter because they could do it tomorrow. It was so
close.
Wynonna reaches in her jacket pockets and pulls out what she came here for. She
throws the paper forward and it catches itself on the air, turns over, spins.
It’s entirely, offensively, too whimsical.
“The results,” Wynonna says.
Nicole bends to pick up the paper and unfolds it. It’s lines and patterns
abbreviations she can’t make sense of at first.
“It’s Waverly’s,” Wynonna says, “The baby’s Waverly’s.”
***** Chapter 11 *****
Chapter Summary
     Y'all know the drill. This is fucking angst.
Chapter Notes
     PHEW so I got a bit tired of this story for a bit. Anyway. Check me
     our on tumblr at earpcin and enjoy !
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Nicole does most of the work of hauling Wynonna's drunk ass up the stairs and
to their bed. Waverly tries to help, but Nicole is so hyper attuned with
exactly where and how Waverly places her hands-on Wynonna's body that she loses
focus and almost drops her. Waverly would have figured the ankle was neutral
territory, but apparently not.
Nicole takes over with an annoyed 'just let me' and Waverly stands back with
her arms crossed over her chest. Her clothes are rumpled and creased, and she
tries to smooth one out on her sleeve, like fixing that one crease will do
anything to make her look less dishevelled.
Waverly's convinced that Nicole is rougher than necessary getting Wynonna up
the stairs, that some of those bumps weren't entirely avoidable, or were harder
than they should have been. When Wynonna wakes up, she won't just be
disoriented and hung over, but she'll be covered in bruises too.
A bitter part of her, something that sounds a lot like Mikshen's voice, says
that it wouldn't be a first for her.
Waverly hears dragging noises and then a grunt and then a metallic creak of
springs. Wynonna. Asleep in her bed. Her bed that she shared with Nicole.
Jesus.
Nicole comes down the stairs so loudly that it scares Calamity Jane into
bolting for the kitchen. She found her other boot and was making full use of
it, leaving heavy forced footsteps on every step.
Waverly doesn't need to hear her stomping to know how angry she is.
"So it's yours?" Nicole says before her feet are even stable. It an accusation.
"Nicole, you knew this might happen, you knew it was a possibility, you can't
act shocked-"
"I'm not shocked," Nicole says, and Waverly believes her. "I'm not shocked,
no," Nicole takes two steps closer to her. She's already so much taller than
Waverly, but now Waverly is barefoot and she's in platform boots, "No, I'm
disgusted. But not surprised."
Waverly takes a step back. It's the first time Nicole's height has ever put her
off.
"What about the other thing?"
"The other...?"
"Other blood test. Just how inbred is it gonna be? Should be only worry about
webbed feet or should we be getting ready for an Eldritch horror?"
Waverly doesn’t even have time for her jaw to drop.
“That’s my fucking baby you’re talking about, you bitch,” the words come out
winded and more sad than angry. Immediately, Nicole looks guilty.
Let her, Waverly thinks, it looks good on her.
“We are, by the way,” Waverly says, “Half-sisters. Same mother. Does that make
you feel better?”
Nicole shifts, and doesn’t say anything. Waverly sighs.
"I know you hate Wynonna, Nicole, but you can't... you can't keep me from the
baby. It's my child too, I have to... be involved."
"And you will be! After it's born, you'll see it, when the baby and Wynonna
aren't a package deal."
"They always will be! What do you think’s gonna happen, Wynonna's just gonna
give me the baby? Never see it? What the hell are we gonna do, go to court for
a custody agreement?"
Nicole opens her mouth to say something but bites it closed again, and chews on
air as she thinks.
"That's if Wynonna even keeps it," Waverly thinks out loud, "We never talked
about that, if she wanted to keep it, or give it away, what she wanted. Though
I guess, now, I have input in that too, I don't... I don't know.... I don't
know."
Nicole rubs at her side of her face. "Yeah, neither do I."
"I have to talk to Wynonna. There are things we needto talk about, we need
those answers.”
Nicole bristles. She isn’t happy by a long shot, but she’s listening.
“However you feel about Wynonna, it’s not fair… to put that on the baby. This
baby… that has to be the priority, they didn’t ask for any of this and we have
to think about-“
“Yeah, this baby,” Waverly can see the anger on Nicole’s face. It’s such an
ugly expression that it even makes Nicole look unattractive, something Waverly
would have regarded as impossible a few months ago. Waverly sees that
expression and knows something ugly is coming, and she’s angry before she even
hears it, “…that’s fucking… born of rape and incest and-“
“Jesus Nicole, so fuckingwhat!” Waverly yells. Calamity Jane jumps from her
sleep and runs from the room with the highest level of drama possible. “Do you
have a goddamn point? Or do you just want to say that because you know it
upsets me? Just because you can? Let it go.”
Nicole looks guilty until the second before Waverly finishes, and Waverly feels
stupid for giving Nicole something she can volley back.
“Let it go?” Nicole scoffs.
“-not what I meant!” Waverly says. She hates this. Every argument they have,
and they’ve been having a lot, they shift from offensive to defensive so fast
that half the time Waverly forgets what her own point was. “Hate Wynonna. Hate
me. But you can’t… hate this baby. It hasn’t done anything.”
I can, Nicole thinks. The thought is entirely unbidden and so sudden and sure
it almost scares her. Waverly has a point, this baby… didn’t have a say in how
it was made, is entirely innocent, but Nicole thinks about it – what its face
might look like, pictures Waverly’s eyes and Wynonna’s nose – and she feels
sick.
It’s unfair.
“This is just the situation, Nicole. I know you hate it. I wasn’t exactly
prepared for it, either. I was unconscious during the conception,” something in
Waverly’s face twitches, and something much deeper stirs too. Just enough for
Waverly to know to avoid it. She moves on quickly, “…but if Wynonna does want
to keep it – or even if she doesn’t - we should be prepared.”
“Prepared?”
“Prepared! You know, birthing plans and… and doctor’s visits and … I don’t
know, buying things? A cot?” Waverly tries to think back through the knowledge
about pregnancy she’s absorbed from the pop culture zeitgeist. It’s not great,
“I don’t know. I’ve never had a baby.”
“Yeah,” Nicole says, “I think this is pretty well uncharted territory for all
of us.”
“And Wynonna’s alone,” Waverly says, ‘Just… imagine she wasn’t Wynonna, okay.
She’s alone and she’s pregnant living in a house that’s ground zero for every
personal tragedy in her life. And now her…” Waverly gestures down her body,
“…baby daddy? Baby momma? I don’t know, whatever – can’t see her, and she can’t
even talk to Doc or Dolls, because they don’t know.”
Nicole knows all that. She knows that Wynonna is suffering, with a baby she
didn’t want or expect and an isolation she can’t drink her way through. But
then she pictures her on top of Waverly when she was thirteen, and it’s really
hard to care.
“I know you don’t want it to be just me and her. That’s fine. You can be there
the whole time. You can be right between us. But I have to see her, Nicole, or
she might… do something.”
By the way Waverly drops her eyes, she knows she means something specific.
Nicole had never asked much about Wynonna’s past, and her record was sealed
even to police officers, but she knew it had been bad. She didn’t know if
Wynonna had ever actually tried to kill herself.
She couldn’t write that off.
“Okay,” Nicole relented, “but I’m there the whole time. And it’s in public.”
Waverly eagerly nodded.
“Yes, yes, of course. I know what we’re doing.”
Nicole’s expression made her elaborate.
“We’re going shopping.”
///
“That’s ages three and up, check the label, Wynonna.” Waverly speaks over her
shoulder while rifling through patterned onesies.
“Yeah, but that’s just marketing,” Wynonna says, “Anyway, we can just keep it
until they’re older.”
Waverly abandons the onesies when she feels Wynonna hovering behind her, and
inspects the package she’s holding out.
“Look at all those little parts. Do you want our baby to choke?” Waverly says
it like a joke but only realises once it’s out that it wasn’t the right thing
to say.
Waverly winces and turns to Nicole just in time to catch her tighten her mouth
in a straight line, and very pointedly look over Wynonna’s head. Wynonna
shrinks away, and puts the toy back on the rack wordlessly.
“What’s next?” Wynonna prompts Waverly to pull out the list she’s insisted on
writing down with pen and paper instead of just making a note on her phone.
Waverly pulled it from her pocket.
“We need pacifiers,” Waverly reads out, folds the note and stuffs it back in
her pocket. She’s always preferred to write things down, ever since she’d had
to develop some system to cope with her crushing workload in high school.
Waverly had told Wynonna years ago – while Wynonna was pestering her to leave
her homework and do something fun -  that it was because crossing things out in
real life was more satisfying than tapping a phone screen. Wynonna had called
her a dork for it, and started kissing her neck.
“Two aisles over,” Nicole says. She’s the tallest out of them and can read the
hanging signs the easiest. Waverly adjusts the shopping basket on her arm, and
they walk.
Nicole’s never far away. She aligns herself with Waverly entirely, grabbing her
hand in a way she’s explicitly told Waverly she doesn’t like to do in public.
Anything to make it abundantly clear that Wynonna is third wheeling.
They get a few looks. The ice between them is obvious; Nicole wonders what the
shop owner must have thought of their dynamic when they’d come in from the
cold, faces red and posture tense like the three of them had just gotten out of
a screaming match. Whatever he might’ve guessed, Nicole thinks, it couldn’t be
as bad as the truth.
The tension is entirely Nicole’s fault: even despite all the circumstances, she
can tell that the sisters are, on some level, excited. She’s not sure if it’s
just the psychology of bright colours and capitalism, but she watches how their
voices change and they move just a bit faster when they spot something
interesting.
This time, it’s a pacifier with a strategically placed moustache on it. Wynonna
finds it absolutely hilarious, and picks it up to show Waverly with a smile.
She catches Nicole’s eyes and her enthusiasm dissipates in a second, like she
remembers that this is supposed to be a necessary chore, it’s not supposed to
be fun.
Waverly sees the interaction and tries to console Wynonna with a half-smile
when she sees the pacifier. She takes it from Wynonna softly and drops it in
the basket, overthinking how long their fingers touch for.
“Can you just grab like, a five pack?” Nicole turns away from the novelty
pacifiers with the animal mouths and toward the simple, pastel colour ones,
“How many of these does a baby even need? Like, are they disposable, or…”
Without getting an answer, Nicole reaches for a pack and drops it into
Waverly’s basket.
Wynonna wants to say something snarky. She doesn't like it on a visceral level,
Nicole being this involved. She could deal with the hovering and the
supervising her and Waverly, but Nicole making active choices is somehow worse.
But that might just be the hormones making her snappy, too.
Wynonna forces her most civil smile, and speaks directly to Nicole without
having to go through Waverly for translation, “Grab another pack, would you,
please?” Her tone doesn’t exactly fit in her mouth, and the please is entirely
out of character. Nicole can’t help but be a little bit pleased that she’s
knocked Wynonna out of her attitude orbit.
She grabs another pack, yellow since they don’t know the sex, and drops it in
the basket too.
Nicole feels weird about it too. Participating. They haven’t talked about
nearly half of what they need to talk about, and Nicole doesn’t know what this
baby is to her. What it could be.
“Thank you,” Wynonna doesn’t say it like she means it, and makes a big movement
of turning back to look at bottles and toys she really isn’t interested in.
Nicole’s phone beeps in her pocket and she pulls it out, expecting it to be
work. She's taken the day off but as a police officer in Purgatory, she was
never off call entirely.
It's not work. She reads the name 'Shae' and swipes to open it. She tries three
times to unlock it with her finger print before she gets frustrated and uses
her passcode instead.
The message is short and unpunctuated and very unlike Shae.
‘can I see you’
Nicole types a response back.
'When?'
She doesn't even look up before it beeps again.
'now?'
Shae doesn't do this. She likes appointment and plans and even her adventure
has to be all scheduled out.
‘Is everything okay?’
Nicole sends the message and a second later years the words out loud, from
Waverly,. The coincidence is so startling that she forgets reality for a
moment,
“Uh, yeah, I’m just…”
Nicole watches the bubbles as Shae types out a message.
‘i just have to see you’
Nicole furrows her brows. Waverly leans to the side, still waiting for an
answer. Nicole answers Shae first.
‘Alright, where are you staying?’
Shae sends a pin of her location and Nicole figures it’d take her a little more
than a half hour to get there. She motions for Waverly to step aside. She does,
and Nicole takes her hand and leads her away until they're hidden behind
another shelf.
"I need to go," Nicole says. She doesn’t offer more of an explanation. She
finds Waverly's eyes and makes strong, purposeful contact.
"Are you gonna be okay?" Nicole asks, nodding her head in Wynonna’s direction.
"Nicole," Waverly makes a huffing noise and loses her eyes. Nicole grabs her
wrist.
"No, I'm serious. Look at me."
Waverly does, switching from looking at her left eye to her right before she
settles for Nicole's nose instead. It's only a bit less uncomfortable.
"Are you gonna be good?" Nicole asks.
Waverly nods.
"Say it."
"I'm gonna be good," Waverly says. It's humiliating. It makes her feel like a
child, the way Nicole leans in after, still holding her hand. Like she doesn't
trust her, like she's looking for evidence. This must be how it feels to be on
the other side of the interrogation table, Waverly thinks, and feels sorry for
all the crooks that have the misfortune of getting caught by Nicole.
Nicole narrows her eyes in suspicion and Waverly focuses on not letting her
expression falter. She keeps it up long enough for Nicole to accept it, nod,
and give Waverly a kiss on the cheek.
“I’ll see you later,” Nicole says, “Text me if…” she looks in the direction she
last saw Wynonna, “…anything happens.”
Nicole turns away, and Waverly waits until she’s out of the shop – her exit
signalled by the bell on the door – before she walks back to Wynonna. Wynonna
has a bottle in one hand and a rattle in the other, looking between them like
she’s trying to compare apples to oranges.
Wynonna smiles when she sees Waverly, and sets both items back on the shelf in
the wrong place.
“Everything okay?” Wynonna asks.
“Yeah,” Waverly says, “Nicole just had to… go do something.” She realises she
doesn’t actually know what – but figure it must have been important if it was
enough to push her into leaving Waverly and Wynonna together.
“She… left?” Wynonna asks.
“I guess.”
“Well, when is she coming back? We have other stores to go to, I don’t know how
long we can just wait up- “
“She didn’t ask us to wait up. We can go on without her.”
“Us?” Wynonna asks, incredulous. She takes a step towards Waverly, “Together?
Alone?”
Waverly shrugs.
Wynonna tilts her head to the side.
“I guess she’s coming around,” Waverly says. Wynonna pulls a face.
“And here I thought she hated me.”
“Oh, she does,” Waverly picks up the rattle from where Wynonna set it down, and
hangs it back up on the opposite rack, in the right place, “don’t worry about
that.”
///
In Nicole’s head, driving to Shae still means driving to Nevada. She finds
herself on the highway, headed a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction
before she realises she’s on autopilot. The way she stops, turns, restarts
violates traffic law, but who the hell is gonna report her, anyway.
She drives too fast all the way to the motel, just far enough out of Purgatory
not to have to worry about running into too many locals. Nicole triple checks
the room number Shae gave her, and the address, even though she knows she has
the right place because of Shae’s car in the parking lot.
Nicole just parks for so long that her windows frost up. When the car next to
her pulls out, she isn’t sure how much later, it finally jolts her away. Nicole
steps out of the car and scans the numbers: Shae’s room is on the second floor.
Nicole reaches it and reconsiders knocking three times. When she finally does,
Shae answers so fast Nicole is sure she must’ve seen here coming up, had been
waiting just behind the door.
“Hi,” Shae says, seeming surprised even though she knew Nicole was on her way.
“Hey,” Nicole says, “How are you?”
“I’m… good.” Shae nods like she’s trying to convince herself of the same thing,
“Do you want to….?” Shae steps aside and gestures into the single room bedroom/
kitchen behind her.
"Uh, yeah, I'll..." Nicole lets it trail off as she steps past Shae. The
entryway is narrow, narrowed than Nicole is used to, and their fronts almost
brush as she squeezes past.
The room is still pretty much in its standard state. Nicole can spot Shae's
suitcase packed away in an open closet, still zipped up. she hasn't unpacked at
all, save for the laptop plugged in a charger in the wall.
Shae shuts the door and Nicole realises w0nders if the heating is broken in
this room, or something.
"I didn't- “
"I wasn't-"
They speak and stop at the same time.
"No, you-"
"Sorry, I-"
Again. Nicole shakes her head in a laugh.
"I was just saying..." Shae waits for the interruption, but it doesn't come, "I
wasn't sure if you'd come."
That gets Nicole's attention. She stops, and raises one eyebrow, but it's more
than curiosity, "Of course I would, Shae, why wouldn’t I?”
Shae shrugs and her mouth pulls back in a way that seems uncomfortable, “I
don’t know. I just thought, you know, after…. anyway, thank you for coming.”
Nicole nods. She’s scanning the room for a place to sit down: she can already
tell that this isn’t going to be a short conversation. The bed is the most
obvious, but that seems like far too much of something else.
Shae notices her looking. “You can sit,” she’s quick to say. Nicole keeps her
expression in check: she doesn’t want to, not really, but she can’t tell Shae
that.
Nicole walks over and slowly sits down. The movement feels like a tax on her
joints.
“I can… do you want something to drink?”
Nicole shakes her head.
“Shae, what’s… why did you need me to come?”
Shae licks her lips and nods to herself. “Uh, yeah,” Nicole doesn’t miss the
way she shifts around, “Sorry if I had you worried, it’s not an emergency or
anything, I’m just…only here for a little while, and I needed to- “
“See me?”
“Yeah.”
“Shae,”She sits down next to her on the bed before Nicole has any chance to
object. Nicole’s not stupid. She’s acutely aware of how alone they are in the
room, how the curtains are closed, how she couldn’t see anything inside before
Shae opened the door. Nicole can feel Shae’s body heat, she’s so close, “I’m in
love with Waverly.”
Shae tightens. Nicole swears she can hear her bones clicking. Gears turning.
"You... got the results?" Shae tucks an errant strand of hair behind her ear.
"The blood tests?" Nicole asks and Shae nods, "Yeah, we got em.”
Shae tightens her lips.
"So... you know then... that they are..."
"The baby's theirs and they're sisters, yeah. It's right there in black and
white."
Shae lifts both eyebrows. She had expecting they’d be just a little bit coy
about it.
"So, Nic," she says, as she looks down at her hands, "Are you gonna tell me how
the hell you found yourself in this situation? How the hell this situation is
even... possible?"
Nicole lifts her arms and crosses them. She opens her mouth but all that comes
out is a dry, humourless laugh.
"Jesus, Shae. I wish I knew."
///
"She hasn't texted once?"
"No, I told you like three times."
"And you're sure you have signal?"
"Yes, three bars."
"And you checked Messenger too? Maybe she just didn't text."
"I checked everything, Wynonna. Twice," Waverly holds up two fingers to
illustrate her point, "She hasn't texted, done anything, in an hour."
"She didn't say anything about where she was going?"
"No."
"Or how long she'd be?"
"I mean, I didn't get the impression she'd be gone all day. she left me with
you, so-"
"You'd figured she'd be right back."
Waverly shrugged, but nodded. She rolled her shoulders to try and work out the
ache than was starting to build: the shopping bags didn't look that heavy, but
they got to be uncomfortable after an hour without a break.
"I'll take that for you," Wynonna shifts both her bags into one hand, and holds
the empty one out to Waverly
Waverly shakes her head. It's light, but it's final, and Wynonna takes her hand
back.
"You're pregnant."
"Yeah, not disabled."
"It's fine."
The silence hangs between them. Waverly shifts again with the bags, and Wynonna
bites back an offer to help again. Someone passes them on the street, and
Waverly is sure he wonders what they're doing, just waiting around.
"So, what now? Do we wait here for her?" Wynonna asks. She just wants to sit
down for a bit: the extra weight she's carrying is already starting to catch up
with her.
"I don't..." Waverly peers past Wynonna and onto the street, half expecting
Nicole to turn up just at that second,"...I don't know. I left her a message."
Wynonna nods. "Well, I think this is just loitering. While we wait, do you want
to..." Wynonna uses her free hand to gestures vaguely North. The only in that
direction that means anything to either of them is the Homestead.
“Wanna go home?”
///
“I love Waverly, I love her, I-“
“I know you do, baby, I know, just- fuck – deeper, oh my god.”
Chapter End Notes
     Apparently there was an issue with the tag. When I last checked, a
     month ago, the "Nicole/Waverly" tag was 'safe' and didn't link to the
     main Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught tag. This fic has never shown in the
     wayhaught tag before, so I didn't have a reason to think it would
     now. Apparently the tag wranglers got on that and changed it, because
     it briefly showed in the wayhaught tag (for less than a total of
     fifteen minutes). I only found out about this from upset commenters,
     and changed it to instead a misspelling of N1cole, to be sure it
     doesn't show in the main tag. It shouldn't be displaying there
     anymore.
***** Chapter 12 *****
Chapter Summary
     In which everyone is just like. 30% worse of a person.
Chapter Notes
     I have tried like, so hard to make sure this doesn't show in the main
     wayhaught tag. I... really think it shouldn't. The tag is misspelt
     entirely with numbers instead of letters so I don't see how it could
     possible show there. If it doesn't work... then short of emailing ao3
     I really don't know how to fix it.
     ANYWAYS, for the rest of ya: enjoy!
Stepping back over the threshold feels like she’s doing something wrong. It’s
the same kind of pre-emptive guilt Waverly gets every time she walks through
the beepers at a store, even though she knows goddamn well she hasn’t taken
anything. Or the way she can’t stop herself from being just a little nervous
around cops. There used to be one exception to that rule, but she doesn’t know
anymore.
Wynonna crosses easily and only stops when she realises she isn’t hearing
Waverly’s steps behind her. She turns sharply, and the movement scrapes and
agitates the show. Wynonna’s hair flicks back over her face and her gaze drops
to where Waverly has her feet planted; just on the wrong side of the bridge.
“You coming?” Wynonna asks. Waverly wishes her brain wouldn’t immediately go to
the double entendre. Wynonna’s hand is held out.
Waverly tests her step softly, like a baby fawn. Like a child onto a frozen
lake. Nothing beeps, nothing burns.
She takes Wynonna’s hand, and goes home.
///
“Do you have a name yet?”
"huh?" Wynonna knows damn well what Waverly is asking, but it takes her brain a
few seconds too long to hear it.
"Names. For the baby," Waverly prompts. Her hands are set out on the table an
intertwined, keeping them still and locked togehter like that is the only thing
she can do to stop herself from picking at her skin.
"Oh.. yeah.. I guess I haven't." Wynonna takes the electric kettle off the
stand before it finishes boiling. She's done that forever. Wynonna insists that
the water doesn't need to boil, it's pointless, you don't need to disinfect the
water and people only wait for the water to boil because they feel like they
should, and then the water is too hot anyway. It drives Waverly insane.
Waverly turns around, forgetting about the just-under-boilded water for the
minute. Waverly is hunched over, shoulders high and tight.
"Should we... talk about that?" Wynonna asks.
Waverly shrugs. Waverly makes herself shrug. She wants to say yes, definitely,
wants to open up her computer and look up names and make lists and text Wynonna
about it and write it out on a chalk board and talk and talk until they rub
them out, one by one by one.
“A baby needs a name, I guess.”
“Do you know if it’s a boy or girl?”
Wynonna shakes her head. Her foot itches with the need to kick herself. She
knew, she knew Waverly would want to know, but she'd just left.
"I... forgot to ask." Wynonna says, "I kind of like gender-neutral names,
though, anyway...."
Wynonna's never thought about baby names once in her fucking life, so it's
bullshit, talking like she has a 'stance' on any of this. She doesn't know how
she feels about anything, but by the way Waverly leans in as she talks, nods
like she's taking notes in class, Wynonna feels like she's just gotten away
with some heist.
"What about you?" Wynonna asks. The quicker she directs attention to Waverly,
lets her take over, the easier it'll be.
Waverly unlocks her hands and it's something like an automaton turning on,
suddenly she'll all there, Wynonna can almost hear the gears. Waverly has a
notebook and a pen on the table within seconds and Wynonna can't figure out
where she got them from.
Waverly clicks her pen open and her hand hovers above the paper, making three
tiny circles in the air like she's calibrating.
"So," she says, and the serious of it scares Wynonna for a second, "what about
the 'w' thing?" Waverly's face breaks into playfulness a second later and
Wynonna flood with relief. Wynonna chews at the corner of her mouth and turns
her body the pace of her drawn-out 'uuhh'.
"I can't think of many more 'w' names, actually. Especially not gender-neutral
ones."
Waverly writes something down on her notepad. It's upside down and too small,
Wynonna can't even half read it.
"Welcome Earp?"
Waverly's face cracks open in a smile as she starts to laugh at her own joke.
Wynonna rolls, flicks a tea towel in Waverly’s general direction. She laughs
too, and in the noise and commotion, covers the noise of her scraping out the
kitchen chair opposite Waverly. She sits down and is surprised by just how much
of a relief it is to be off her feet, even just for a minute.
"I'll make up columns," Waverly's says, drawing lines so straight Wynonna
swears that must be Waverly's own patent supernatural gift, "Boy’s names,
girl’s names, neutral. And this box down the bottom, for names that neither of
us like. Should I put 'Welcome' down there?"
"Write 'anything with a w'. I think it's about time that tradition died."
Waverly lifts an eyebrow, but follows through. Wynonna can't read the words,
but she can see the forms. Waverly's hand writing is so pretty.
"Wyatt Earp would be rolling in his grave." Waverly says.
She watches the second it hits Wynona. Waverly hadn't meant it like that...
Waverly fidgets with the pen's click. It's the only sound for a good minute,
after the laughter ends and the wind does unnaturally quiet.
Waverly pulls the book closer to herself, like she's trying to pull the words
back, too. The movement snaps Wynonna out of it. It's stupid, she tells
herself: they both know how they got here, and Wynonna knows it's probably just
the pregnancy making her so sensitive. Her normal comedic deflection doesn't
come as naturally.
“Oh, I’m sure he would.” Wynonna says. She motions for Waverly to hand over the
pen and the notepad, and starts to scribble something down.
“How do you feel about ‘Alex’?”
///
They make a list that takes up three pages, about three quarter’s Waverly’s
ideas and one quarter Wynonna’s. The page is worn in from all the writing,
bending and crinkling almost like it’s gotten wet. There are imprints of the
words three pages deep, four in some, where Waverly pushed down the hardest.
They’re about to start the culling process – Waverly switches to a red pen for
the act – when they hear the front door open.
Waverly looks at Wynonna, eyes wide, and closes the book. Her first thought is
something demonic, and she spies Peacemaker over Wynonna’s shoulder, resting on
the kitchen counter. They nod to each other. Wynonna turns to grab it, and just
then, Nicole speaks.
“Sorry I ran a little late,” Nicole's voice is still in the other room by the
time she enters the kitchen. She tosses her keys onto the counter, eyes down
cast, and doesn't see either of them. "My phone died or I would've texted - I
stopped home first but you weren't there so I figure - Hi, Wynonna - I figured
this would be the next likeliest place to find you. What's that?" Her words
come hard and fast. Nicole points to the closed book on the table: it's places
right in the centre, pen places next to it, with Wynonna and Waverly each on
opposite it. Like it's staged. Like it's a relic. Nicole reaches out for it and
Waverly thinks that grabbing her arm would just make it worse.
She opens it and starts flicking. She doesn't come to the right page right
away. Waverly's had this book since high school, and there are scattered notes,
all out of order, all over the place.
Waverly can tell the exact second Nicole finds the right page because she
pushed the book further away from herself, holding it up like she's trying to
get the best light. She's mouthing the words, Waverly recognises the order.
"Alex, Charlie.... what's... oh."
Nicole snaps the book closed again, "Baby names. For the baby. Right."
Wynonna has her head angled away from Nicole, and slightly down. The curtain of
her tumbling hair between them, making her feel safer like a blanket against a
monster as a child - not that the blanket ever kept her safe. She still hasn't
let go of Peacemaker.
Nicole clears her throat, "Have you, uhh... chosen one, yet?" This time, Nicole
looks directly at Wynonna. Wynonna mutters something back, and Waverly
translates, "No, that's just the first list... we'll... eliminate some from
there. Process of elimination..." Waverly's voice ticks up at the ends like
she's asking a question.
“Oh, right, that’s nice…” Nicole rubs at an invisible spot on her arm. She eyes
an empty chair at the table, between Waverly and Wynonna.
“Do you wanna, um, sit down?” Wynonna says, and remembers her time in
psychiatric care. Following orders.
"Sure," Nicole's movements are a bit too fast as she moves. When she pulls out
her chair it scrapes and Waverly winces. Her hand on the table taps out
something slow with two fingers, until Nicole stops her - grabs her hands and
intertwines their fingers, even though the angle is uncomfortable.
Wynonna weaves a hand under her hair and scratches at her scalp.
"Did you end up getting everything? For the baby?"
Wynonna gives Waverly another look, and she takes over.
"Yeah, it's just in the other room. We might have to see how we go, we'll
probably have to go back after the... the birth, but we're good for now."
"Great!" Nicole flashes teeth and Waverly's eyes burn. Her energy is forceful,
vampiric.
"Would you like some, uh, tea?" Wynonna points at the kettle, still where she'd
left it. Cold again, now.
"That'd be great, thanks." Wynonna nods and put it back on the base. The second
she turns away from Nicole, her face relaxes, she exhales. She flips the switch
on the kettle and boils it all the way.
///
So it's her and her sister and the mother of her baby and her sister's
girlfriend and the woman who hates her and there's only three people there,
Wynonna thinks, and almost makes herself laugh. And the three of them are
sitting around, drinking fucking tea. Wynonna knows how many sugars Nicole
takes and Nicole knows that Wynonna's loved Waverly since she was eighteen, and
it's all so absurdly civil. Wynonna doesn't know what's pulled Nicole off the
warpath and she doesn't intend to ask, just being able to talk to her without
the constant of undercurrent of threats against her person is quite enough.
It turned dark a half hour ago and they're on their third round of tea -
Wynonna and Nicole are, Waverly switched to water - and Nicole starts glancing
back at her keys on the counter.
"It's getting pretty late," Nicole folds her arms on the table, tucks her hands
into the warm crooks of her arms. It's cold inside the house and even colder
outside - snow storms don't make for ideal driving conditions, and Nicole knows
all about the black ice on the road. She literally wrote the warning about it.
Wynonna rubs at the side of her head as Nicole pushes out her chair. She nods
her head in the direction of the door, and Waverly starts to get her things
together too.
""Why don't you just stay here?" Wynonna said. The words taste so bitter she
doesn't even miss the coffee she can't have.
"Are you sure?" Nicole asks, but Wynonna can see the way her feet are planted.
Facing toward her, solid. She'd not moving.
"Of course," Wynonna says, "It's too dangerous to drive anyway. I haven't
changed upstairs at all since Waverly left, so, if you wanna-"
"-Sure, Wynonna, that'll be fine." Nicole wraps her arm around Waverly's
midriff and pulls her in, "I think I might head up pretty soon, actually.
Wave?"
Waverly nods along.
"Alright, then," Nicole's half way to the stairs when she turns out. "Thanks,
Wynonna."
"You're welcome," Wynonna smiles and it feels like she's splitting her lips.
She watches them climb up the stairs. Spineless.
///
There's skin against her cheek and skin against her hand and Waverly feels like
if she trails her fingers she can keep going, keep going forever. She's up
before the sun is so there's no romantic morning light, but there's this:
steady breathing, shallow but she can hear the trace of a voice of it, imagine
speech, imagine an inhale before a kiss, imagine teeth and tongues and
whispers.
She can feel imprints on her neck from years ago: The bruises are gone her body
remembers. Her body never forgot. Waverly touches her neck before she realises
it, and she can feel how cold her own skin is. She shivers and snuggles closer,
and for a second before she realises that this isn't Wynonna she's in bed with,
she thinks about a clearing in a forest.
Then her eyes open, and all she sees is red hair. Nicole turns over a second
later, and her shirt rides up with the motion. Waverly withdraws her hand,
slowly, like she's testing her hand-eye coordination.
Nicole is a light sleeper.
"Morning," Nicole says, her voice deepened and raspy with sleep and Waverly
wishes it didn't sound so much like...
"Morning," Waverly sits up in bed and swings her legs off the edge of the bed.
She's dressed in actual pyjamas: something she only started doing after she
started seeing Nicole. Her body is sore but not for the usual reasons. They
didn't have sex last night, Waverly had blamed it on a head ache instead of
trying to explain that it felt like imperialism, like they were invaders in a
foreign land.
She hears the bed shift as Nicole rises too, and seconds later feels a hand on
her shoulder, rubbing in an attempt at a soothing pattern. A failed attempt.
"I have to go to the bathroom," Waverly rises from the bed and goes to run a
hand through her hair before she remembers she slept with it in a braid. She
tosses it over her shoulder and pulls of the elastic at the end as she walks,
and starts pulling it out from the bottom. She walks past the bathroom
entirely, and heads for the kitchen, where she hears noise.
She gets closer, and discerns it as something sizzling, seconds before the
smell of bacon confirms it. She's barefoot, so doesn't make a sound as she
approaches Wynonna from behind, her back turned and otherwise occupied.
"You're up early," Waverly says.
Wynonna jumps, but recovers quickly. "Not that early," Wynonna pokes at the
bacon with the spatula and Waverly can't help but think that it seems like
she's trying very hard to be occupied, "Just gets light late."
Waverly nods and crosses her arms over herself. Did Wynonna forget a window
open, or something?
"You know, you shouldn't have to cook. Doesn't the smell of some food like,
trigger morning sickness, or something?"
Wynonna shrugs, "Sometimes. It's not that bad. Besides, it's cook or starve."
Waverly leans against the counter, "No, I could just co-"
Waverly cuts herself off when she remembers she doesn't live here anymore.
She's only been back for a single night and she's already re-orienting herself.
It's too fast, too easy to slip into.
Wynonna gives a sad smile, "Don't worry. I'm a big girl, Waverly, I can feed
myself."
"Right..."
Wynonna turns the heat down. The oil moves from spitting to just
bubbling.Waverly can already tell it's gonna be burnt.
"So," Wynonna says, "What's up with...." she pauses for a second, listening for
footsteps on the stairs, down the hall. She lowers her voice, "What's up with
Nicole? Yesterday morning prison was the only thing keeping her from strangling
me. Now we're all buddy-buddy all of a sudden? Drinking fucking tea? Having
sleep overs? She wasn’t even mad that we were alone." The words come out harsh
and breathy, directed at Waverly like an arrow. Waverly immediately falls into
the conversation, echoing the tone.
"I know, right? I can't... she didn't say anything to me, but she's all...
normally she..." Waverly rubs the back of her neck, "...normally, she talks
shit about you when you're not there. She didn't say anythinglast night. I
don't know. It seems like she’s…. apologising, or something.”
“So she suddenly feels sorry for hating me?”
Waverly shrugs, “I really don’t know – take the bacon off, the oil will catch
fire – I really don’t know why she’s different all of a sudden. Let’s just hope
it sticks.”
“Yeah, let’s hope.”
Wynonna finishes up breakfast while Waverly makes two coffees and one tea –
refusing to give in even under Wynonna’s pleading. The exact second she places
the salt down on the table, she sees Nicole’s shadow starting to come down the
stairs.
“Perfect timing,” Wynonna says, “Are you hungry?”
“I…” Nicole leaves her mouth open while she ums, eyes flicking between the two
of them. “I am, actually, but I’ll have to eat at the station. They need me.”
Nicole holds her phone up to show a notification, but it’s too far to read, and
she pulls it back and stuffs it pack in her pocket quickly. Her jacket is
folded over her arm and she unfolds it as she comes down the stairs, starting
to put it on as she speaks.
“Oh, okay,” Waverly says, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice.
She looks under the table for where she left her bag last night, and bends down
to get it. She slings it over her shoulder and looks and Wynonna and just feels
bad: Wynonna made all this food and now they’re just going and-
“Wave, why don’t you stay? You don’t have to come with me.”
“I…don’t?” Waverly lets her bag drop from her shoulder in slow motion. It’s
almost cinematic when it hits the ground.
“Sure,” Nicole says, like it’s nothing, “I can come pick you up later, or
Wynonna can drop you back home, or whatever.”
“O..kay..” Waverly says, slowly sitting down. It feel like a trick, like Nicole
might pull it away in a second.  But she doesn’t. She adjusts her jacket and
she swipes her keys off the counter and she heads out the door, and then
they’re alone together.
///
“Yeah, I’m on my way, Shae… I don’t know, half an hour? Yeah, okay, see you
soon. You too.” Nicole hangs up and it’s little more than gravity that brings
her phone down into her lap. She exhales, watching the silhouette of the
homestead against the bleak, grey sky.
There's smoke coming from the chimney, and Nicole can imagine them lighting a
fire, sitting together, side my side. Touching at the arms, the knees, sitting
on the floor or on blankets or half on each other. She makes herself angry with
the thoughts, takes it farther in her head.... in her head, Waverly turns
around, runs a hand up Wynonna's leg, and Wynonna doesn't stop her.
Nicole's hands tense on the steering wheel. She bites down on her teeth and
swears her vision gets a bit darker as she lets it unfold in her head. How dare
they, how dare they... Nicole catches sight of her phone just as her phone
dings with a picture message from Shae. She knows exactly what it'll be a
picture of. It almost cuts through the self-induced anger, but she shakes the
softness off.
How dare they, Nicole sees Waverly's mouth open, and when that isn't enough
anymore, tries to imagine Waverly when she was thirteen. Wynonna over her, a
monster, all she's missing is horns.
Nicole excites herself so she'll stay insane. If she calms down she'll stop
herself, she'll start to feel it, she'll put her phone away and turn back and
block Shae's number.
She starts the car and knows every road rules she breaks by heart as she zooms
off of the Earp land. Shae's sending her something else filthy, her phone won't
stop beeping in the passenger seat.
In her rear view mirror, she can still see the smoke coming up from the
homestead. Thicker now, blacker. It cuts through the sky like a charcoal smear
on something perfect and white.
Nicole puts her foot down on the gas just as another text comes through.
How dare they.
///
"Go fish," Wynonna reaches out for a card and keeps it close to her chest as
soon as she's picked it, making a show out of the movement.
"You're lying."
"Not."
"You are."
"How do you know? You counting cards?"
///
Shae's on the bed and undressed, tired and laid over the messed up sheets. The
pillows have been tossed onto the floor and all the lights in the room are out,
only the window is open. Nicole is staring out of it, sitting on the edge of
the bed. She's more dressed than Shae but that isn't saying much. She is hyper
aware of every mark Shae left on her body - despite her warning to not leave
too many marks -and is already planning how to hide them or explain them away.
Her hands are clasped together between her knees and her neck hurts from
keeping her head tilted down that long.
"You okay, baby?" Shae asks, but Nicole can hear how tired she is. She's gonna
be asleep in a minute, Nicole won't keep her up. She knows from when they were
married that Shae really doesn’t sleep enough, and she doesn't think that's
changed in the time since.
Nicole rises from the bed. Her keys are on the nightstand. All the anger left
her body the second she came and now she feels sick, she feels sick. She grabs
her phone and looks up a florist near Purgatory: she’ll stop there before she
sees Waverly again.
“Where are you going?” Shae’s just barely awake when Nicole swipes her keys off
the table.
“Work,” Nicole says, while she brings up the florist’s address, “I’ll see you
soon.”
///
“Oh, babe!” Waverly’s eyes go all wide and happy and she reaches for the bottom
of the bouquet, grips it in her hands. Nicole lets go and lets her taken it.
“You shouldn’t have.”
End Notes
     //Preamble//
     Alright. I know some people are gonna hate this. Such is your right.
     I know there are some people who really really hate just seeing fics
     with wynonna/waverly in the feed and I get it I'm sorry you have to
     see this. If there was a way to toggle off this appearing in the main
     Wynonna Earp archive, I would do it.
     In my defence, though.... I don't really consider this... an earpcest
     fic? Not really. I mean, like, they are the pairing but this fic, if
     you've read it you'll know that it certainly isn't trying to paint
     them together in a sweet or romantic or positive light. This is not
     meant to be a good couple. For example, I'm also in the Supergirl
     fandom and I've written fics where kara and mon-el are together in
     them, even though I despise karamel, so I wouldn't call those karamel
     fics even though that's the pairing.
     This is not meant to portray a healthy relationship. Wynonna, in
     this, is not a good person. This is not a nice fic. The title is
     literally 'vile' for god's sake.
     I think saying ‘don’t like don’t read’ is a cop out, and this isn’t
     even about me avoiding hate messages, but I’ll say with complete
     sincerity that if you think this fic will be hard for you to read or
     that it will make you feel bad, that I really suggest you read
     another fic.
     //Trigger Warnings//
     (in order of appearance)
     - Underage drinking
     - Sibling incest
     - Attempted statutory rape
     - Discussion of rape
     - Underage (in some places) sex (Age 16)
     - Rape
     //Disclaimer//
     I don't own anything.
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