prismaticpollen - Tumblr blog

prismaticpollen · 24 hours

Text

a break in the silence

Wrote some cute lesbian fluff with Frankie and Penn, sprinkled with some reflections on parental shit because it's what I do. But mostly, it's ridiculously sweet, sappy fluff. (Set right after the vacation series, but you don't need to have read that ... a couple of things from that are mentioned, but you won't be lost if you haven't read it!)

Summary: Penn has a bad cold and feels guilty for being noisy and keeping Frankie up at night. Luckily, Frankie doesn't mind so much. 5.2k words

Fic below the cut. CW for mentions of parental neglect, brief/undescribed mentions of previous illness during childhood, one *extremely* vague mention of past self harm, internalized ableism/brief mentions of attempting to suppress meltdowns, brief mentions of unintentional contagion, a few mentions of mess (not graphic), brief sexual content/heavy making out. (I pinky promise this is a mostly fluffy fic despite the content warnings.) Minors, TERFS, and non-kink blogs DNI!

Penn’s mom always said she was too loud.

It was sort of an odd thing to say, given how much of her childhood she spent learning to be quiet.

There are plenty of ways to do it: Bite the tip of your tongue while people are talking. Focus on holding your words in your throat like fish caught in a net, only letting them spring out when you are absolutely, one hundred percent certain others are done speaking. Smile, but not too much. Turn yourself inside out so the constant, screaming noise stays inside.

And she learned these tricks quickly. At ten, her body taught itself to quit having panic attacks, instead pulling some invisible string that yanked her into a clouded, distant version of the world where everything was muted and faraway. At eleven, her bones grew strong enough to trap the screaming sobs behind her teeth when the world crowded too close to her ears and set her skin on fire.

Of course, she needed an outlet — anyone would. But that was always for later — alone in the bathroom, where she could take the overwhelm out on herself in the darkness, in the silence.

It always startled her how badly it stung, but at least she could crawl into her bed at night without being chased by questions both she and her mother knew she could never answer — questions about why she was so sensitive, why she couldn’t be more like her brother, why nothing ever really changed.

Those childhood monsters still lurk beneath her bed and in her closet now, even outside the darkness of that house. Skills learned for the sake of survival, no matter how much they hurt, aren’t so easy to let go of. And while in so many ways, it’s not like it used to be, there are certain things that still stir up those old feelings of wanting to shrink herself down, that old shame swelling up like a shadow puppet across her bedroom wall.

And having the control to be quiet, if she wants, ripped away, betrayed by her own body — well. It’s always just been a little difficult to cope with.

In the twilight after work, she lets herself into Frankie’s apartment, though her body announces her arrival before she can eke out a “hello.”

“AIISHHuehh! hihh! — hih’AISHHHHeuhhh!”

The sneezes, aimed down toward the floor, rip across her already worn throat and snatch the breath from her lungs, jarring the congestion in her head with a dull pang. The paper bag of takeout in her left hand shudders, and her right hand drops her laptop bag. It thuds on the carpet, bumping against her leg before settling on the floor.

“Bless you,” Frankie calls, though her tone is so steeped in sympathy, the phrase feels more like an exclamation over how exhausted she sounds, or the warm embrace of her arms draped gently around her.

“Guhh. Thangk you.” With a heavy sniffle, Penn sets the takeout on the edge of the passthrough window to the kitchen and slips off her Vans. “I picked up dinner,” she rasps.

The couch squeaks softly. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I kndow, but I wanted to.” Penn sniffles again and trudges toward the couch, rubbing at her eyes with her fist. “You’ve been cooki’g all week, and I figured you could use a break. Plus tacos sounded ndice. Ndot that I can taste anythi’g, but …”

She stops at the couch. In spite of the vague blah feeling she hasn’t been able to shake for a week — the one that leaves her sinuses jammed to the brim and keeps her up late into the night muffling coughs into her pillow — a smile tugs at the edge of her mouth.

Frankie lounges against the arm of the couch, her left leg propped up on a pillow with an ice pack draped over her ankle. The fatigue that weighed so heavily on her during the worst of her own cold no longer tugs on her shoulders or shadows her face, her eyes bright and sweet with a smile despite spending all day at the bookstore.

“How’s your ankle?” Penn asks. She slumps into the sleeve of her cardigan to clear her throat, then coughs a couple of times — deep, itchy coughs that bite at her ribs and leave her voice scratched thin.

“Just a little sore still,” Frankie says. She’s still in her black flannel from work (one of her favorites), though she’s slipped out of her jeans, leaving her legs bare save for the black boxers that hug her thighs.

She reaches for Penn, motioning to that tender, warm space between her legs. “Come sit — you sound exhausted.”

“I am.” Penn ducks into her sleeve to cough again and rubs at her nose, then drops into Frankie’s lap. It’s a little awkward, with her legs sticking out halfway off the couch, though Frankie hooks her arms around her and holds her tight against her chest.

Frankie presses her face against the crook of Penn’s neck. A soft, contented sigh casts a burst of goose bumps across Penn’s skin. “I missed you.”

“Mbissed you, too.” Penn tilts her head to nuzzle a kiss against Frankie’s lips, though she has to lean back almost immediately to sniffle, then keeps sniffling.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, pressing her nose into her sleeve to muffle a sharper sniffle that whistles over her sinuses and flares that ever-present ticklish burn at the back of her nose.

It’s the sort of thing that most people would politely ignore as long as they could, or in the case of those she grew up around, would bluntly say the sound was driving them crazy. But Frankie’s only ever been caring — kind and gentle, even when Penn keeps her up at night with the symptoms she can’t wrangle into silence.

She hums a sympathetic sound and runs her fingers through Penn’s hair. “You can relax now,” she murmurs. “Was work bad? I thought you’d be home sooner.”

That irritation at the back of her nose flares sharper and snags Penn’s breath. She curls forward a little, creating space between her and Frankie, tucking her face into the soft fabric of her sleeve again. “Hihh! Ihhh — EISHHHihhh! Hih’ESHHHHuuehhh!” She coughs through a stuffy sigh and slumps more heavily into Frankie, her head tipping back against her shoulder, lips parting to draw in a quiet breath. “Does that answer your question?”

Frankie hugs her closer. “I’m so sorry.” She strokes her thumb over Penn’s temple. “Do you want to take a shower? You sound really stuffy.”

“Ndot really. I mbean, mbaybe later, but ndot now.” A slight shiver whispers across Penn’s skin. She curls in closer to Frankie. “I just want to be with you.”

“Yeah?” Frankie slips a hand up the back of Penn’s shirt. Her fingers play across Penn’s skin, light and warm, each touch leaving a trail of goose bumps behind. “We can do that.”

Penn’s breath trembles in her chest for an entirely new, much more pleasant reason. She tips her head back to bite a kiss along Frankie’s jaw, nipping at her tender skin.

Frankie’s breath shudders with a pleased sound, her fingers splaying across Penn’s back. She kicks off the ice pack and sits up a little higher, her hands settling at Penn’s hips. With her jaw still exposed for Penn’s lips, she settles against the back of the couch, then guides Penn more squarely onto her lap, this time bringing her around to face her, with Penn straddling her thighs.

Penn tugs at the waistband of her jeans with a sniffle. A sharp twinge fires in her sinuses. “I probably — hihh! — probably should have changed —”

“Later,” Frankie mumbles into Penn’s mouth. She folds her arms around Penn’s neck, pulling her in close, drowning her in the kiss.

Penn sniffles against the bristling itch in her nose and flits her tongue over Frankie’s lips. Even with the fatigue of her cold wearing on her, warmth swells through her stomach and up into her chest, coating her body in a delightful flush that makes every nerve light up. Every part of her is oversensitive from years of want, the smallest touch stealing her breath and sending her heart high in her throat. And Frankie … well, she knows exactly what feels good.

She scoots up higher on Frankie’s lap, giving herself a little more height to lean down into the kiss. Her nose scrunches against another sniffle, sharper this time. Her breath trembles in Frankie’s mouth and down into her chest, sparking a shiver through her whole body.

Frankie pushes up into her with a husky, barely there groan, its edges raw with hunger. Beneath Penn’s shirt, her fingers fumble over the soft dips of her stomach before settling over the lace of her bralette.

Penn’s breath stutters out with a whine, though it gets cut off with a jagged gasp as heat prickles through her nose. She opens her mouth to stutter out a warning, or an apology, or maybe even just an exclamation about how fucking good Frankie’s hands feel on her and to please, god, don’t stop, but all she can manage is a hazy shake of her head before lurching into her sleeve.

“Hih! Hih’AISHHHuehh! ehh’EISHHHuehh! Hih — hih’EISHHHuehh!”

“Bless you,” Frankie mumbles, her lips heavy against Penn’s neck. Her fingers still rest on her bralette, though they’ve gone still.

Penn scrubs her nose against her wrist. She definitely should have taken more medicine before sitting down on the couch, or at least grabbed a box of tissues from the bathroom. Hell, even just giving her nose one good blow after a day of trying to be as unobtrusive as possible with this cold from hell probably would have been better than nothing.

“Sorry.” Her breath shivers a little. “I swear I’b fine, I’b just — snnrk! — I’b just itchy, but if you don’t mbind it, then —”

“I don’t.” Frankie nuzzles a kiss into the soft spot just below Penn’s jaw. She reaches up to push Penn’s hair back from her face. “But I feel like I should free up your lips so you can breathe.”

Penn coughs on a laugh. “That’s ndo fun.”

“I don’t know.” Frankie’s index finger, light as a butterfly, flutters over the bud of Penn’s nipple. “I think it could be.”

Penn bites back a whine as the muscles in her back arch, her body tensing to keep her from squirming or, worse, grinding up against Frankie’s thigh to soothe the heat between her legs.

Frankie hums a laugh and gives her nipple a gentle pinch. It’s barely anything, a tease at what she could do, if Penn’s patient, but even that sends a shudder through Penn’s legs.

“Just relax,” Frankie murmurs. “I’ve got you.”

She tries, burying her face in Frankie’s shoulder as Frankie’s fingers continue playing under her shirt. But the drag of her breath, needy and hot, across her throat scrapes at the irritated flesh, and just as quickly as she’s gotten comfortable, she has to pull away again to muffle a barky fit of coughs in her sleeve.

Frankie’s hand falls away from her breast and cups the small of her back, steadying her as cough after cough tears at her chest. Each one sends a burst of pain through her head, slamming against her sinuses like a sledgehammer until the rims of her nostrils and corners of her eyes are hot and damp.

“Sorry,” she rasps, vision hazy as she blinks at Frankie.

Frankie watches her with a far more somber expression than a moment ago, the haze of desire washed from her face. “Do you want to lie down? I can go get you medicine.”

“Ndo, I mbean — we can keep going. I think I just … mby throat’s sort of itchy.” She presses her sleeve against her nose as a stray cough rumbles in her chest. “It sounds worse than it is.”

Frankie lifts her brows in a dubious frown. “It’s sounded that way for a week.”

Penn shrugs. She sniffles, her nose wrinkling a little as that prickly, burning itch seeps through it. “It’s just a bad cold.”

“I know. I just want to make you comfortable.”

It’s probably true, but the flush coloring Frankie’s neck and the heavy, heated rise and fall of her chest make guilt seep through Penn’s stomach.

It seemed convenient at first, her staying at Frankie’s apartment while they were both sick, especially when Tim seemed to think she was some kind of walking biohazard. Not that she could blame him — she came home from Virginia with the sort of cough that functioned as a flashing billboard, its neon lights blaring to the rest of the world to stay far, far away.

And it was convenient. It’s just that there are certain expectations that come with spending so much time together, especially as a new couple. Certain things that would be fun to explore together, if she weren’t in such a perpetual state of mouthbreathing and trying desperately not to cough all over herself. The thought of making out with someone, or heaven forbid letting your mouth explore the more intimate parts of them, is exponentially less sexy when you take into account the fact that you can’t breathe through your nose and have been cursed with quite possibly the most obnoxious, viciously loud sneezes in the entire state.

Frankie smooths Penn’s shirt and tugs the hem straight around her waist. She tips her head up against the back of the sofa and smiles at her. “Let me get you your medicine, and dinner,” she murmurs. “How about you go change into something more comfortable? And maybe we could watch something in bed, if you’d like that?”

Penn shoves her knuckles against her nose. “Is that … I mbean … is that what you want?”

“I just want to take care of you.” Frankie tucks a stray wisp of hair behind Penn’s ear. “You’re so sick. Let me get you feeling better.”

Penn bites the inside of her cheek. She says it with a kind of tenderness that Penn’s only caught glimpses of before, the kind that’s reserved for this apartment, or Penn’s bedroom, or the other small moments when they’re alone together. Something shared just between the two of them, like a secret, but better.

“If you’re sure,” Penn whispers.

“I’m sure.” Frankie kisses her forehead. “Go put on pajamas and get some tissues and pick out something to watch. I’ll meet you in bed.”

Penn’s mom always hated when she was sick.

It was the sort of thing that she’s never been able to pull apart and make sense of, even after several years in therapy. At the first sign of a sore throat, her mom became a different person — all tender words and gentle, sweet touches as she tucked her into bed. But if things weren’t better by the next morning, Penn would come downstairs for breakfast to be met with words angrily snapped across the table about how loud she’d been during the night, and why hadn’t she taken more medicine, and couldn’t she be more considerate of the rest of the house? They were all working so hard, after all.

It’s not like she expected her mom to stay home and dote on her — both her parents had full-time jobs, and she and her brother were raised largely by their teachers, coaches, and after-school club leaders. It was just the way that her mom could flip like a switch, one moment showing a tiny glimmer of that nurturing spirit Penn so desperately longed for, and the next, shouting at her for disrupting her sleep with a cough she couldn’t get a handle on.

That was all a long time ago. But that sort of shame, poured on you so freely by the one person who’s supposed to love you the most, is hard not to hold tight at the center of your chest, cupping it between your fingers like a fragile baby bird.

Especially when she’s kept Frankie up every night for the past week.

Penn shivers deeper into the blankets and muffles what feels like the hundredth cough of the night into her pillow. Everything in her aches, her chest worn out and head full of pressure that pulses behind her face, the kind of pain that begs for the relief of sleep that won’t come.

They couldn’t have gone to bed more than twenty minutes ago, but time oozes by like honey in a jar, dragging by as she stares up at the ceiling and strains to keep her body from reacting as the air prickles through her nose and down into her lungs.

It only halfway works — she’s barely made it a minute or two without coughing, and when it’s not that, she’s curling deeper into her pillow to muffle sneezes, or ripping tissues from the box at the head of the bed to blow her nose. It’s a frustrating cycle to experience, and probably even more frustrating to listen to.

As she draws in a breath through her lips, the air crawls over her lungs, thick and prickling like a swarm of bees. A cough bursts up before she can try to tamp it down, rattling deep in her ribs, hot and scraping across her throat.

The mattress dips as Frankie shifts beside her. Her bedside lamp clicks on, casting the bedroom in a soft glow that brings the prick of tears to Penn’s eyes and nose.

Frankie fumbles a hand against Penn’s shoulder. “Can I make you tea?”

“Ndo — sorry, I’ll stop, it’s just …” Penn chokes on a stray cough. She scrubs her nose into the sleeve of her henley pajama top, shoving at the burning itch that stings deep in her sinuses and in the corners of her eyes. “Mby mbeds just ndeed to kick in still, I guess.”

Frankie smooths Penn’s hair back from her forehead. She watches her from across her pillow. “Can I put VapoRub on your chest? Maybe that would help.”

Penn sniffles into her sleeve — an effort in futility, given how blocked her nose is. “I thingk it would just mbake mbe sndeeze mbore.”

Frankie makes a noncommittal sound. “Yeah, well … would that be such a bad thing? It might help clear your head up.”

“I mbean, sort of.” Penn sniffles again, her breath shivering on the tail end. “You’re tryi’g to sleep.”

Frankie shrugs. “If it’ll make you feel better, then I don’t mind.” She rolls over toward her nightstand. The drawer opens with a quiet scraping sound. “And I’m serious about tea, if it would help.”

“Ndo — I mbean, mbaybe, but I really am hopi’g this just — hih! — that it just settles down soon.” Penn coughs into her sleeve again, the vague itchy burn between her eyes and nose and throat dampening her eyes. She reaches for a tissue from the box that took up permanent residency between their pillows a week ago and nudges her nose into it. “I thingk mbaybe work just wore mbe out, and — hihh! — and all the pollen probably isn’t hhihhhhelpi’g—g’TSCHHHihhh!”

The sneeze stumbles out of her, breathless and scraping over her chest and throat. Dry pressure bursts in her nose, like her sinuses are too swollen to let the crap in them budge no matter how hard she sneezes or blows, leaving it there to further irritate her sensitive nerves.

Her breath snags again, jagged over her lungs, slamming her eyes shut. “Hihhh! Hih’AISHHHihh! Hih’EXSHHHHuehhh!” A cough immediately follows, harsh and rattling behind her tissue. Tears bead along her eyelashes. She lets out a low, croaky groan and blinks bleary eyes at Frankie. “Oh mby god. Fuck.”

As she turns back from the nightstand, Frankie’s face droops with a pained frown. “Bless you, honey.” The term of endearment slips out without mention or reaction, as if Frankie’s unaware she’s even said it, with the sort of ease that makes Penn’s chest go achingly warm.

Frankie sets the jar of VapoRub on her pillow and sits up on her knees. Her fingers trail gently over Penn’s forehead. “Do you want more pillows? That might help you breathe better.”

A lump presses up against Penn’s throat. It’s silly — probably mostly just a sign of how exhausted she really is — but Frankie’s fingers feel so nice, her touch so gentle, her voice so tender. So patient, even when she doesn’t have to be.

Penn swallows hard and shakes her head. She muffles a shivery cough in her tissue. “I’b okay,” she whispers.

“Okay. If you’re sure.” Frankie bends close, the lamp’s dim glow stretching her shadow long across the blankets. As her fingers fidget at the top button of Penn’s shirt, a little clumsy with sleepiness as she works to undo it, she peeks up at Penn. “I’m sorry you’re still so sick.”

Penn shrugs against her pillow. “It’s fine. I mbean, it just is what it is. snnrk! Like I said, it’s probably just … stress and mby allergies mbaki’g things worse.”

“Probably.” Frankie undos another button, then drapes the top of Penn’s shirt open. As she uncaps the VapoRub, turning the air sharp with menthol, goose bumps sweep across Penn’s exposed skin.

She sniffles again. “Thangk you. I mbean, just — this is really ndice of you.”

The corner of Frankie’s lips turns up in an unassuming smile. “I like taking care of you.”

“Yeah, but … it’s the mbiddle of the ndight. And I just, this — snnrrk! — guh. It has to be getti’g kind of old.”

Frankie shakes her head as she dips her fingers into the ointment. “No.” She dabs VapoRub on Penn’s sternum, tracing a slow, soothing circle with her index and middle fingers. “I mean, I feel bad that you’re not feeling better, but … that’s all.”

Penn pushes her nose against her wrist as the bite of menthol floods her nostrils. The edges of them tingle, her nerves sparking with overstimulation, a breath away from firing until she’s breathless and dizzy.

She snags another tissue from the box and nudges it against her septum. “I just — if you wanted, I could go back to mby place. Tim’s probably ndot really worried about catchi’g this anymbore, and I mbean, it’s ndot like I don’t see him at work anyway.” She breathes into the tissue with a crackling sniffle that makes her nostrils quiver. “Ndot that I don’t want to be here, it’s just — I kndow I’ve been keepi’g you up, so I just thought —”

“You’re not going anywhere. Not because of that.” Frankie’s thumb sweeps across the skin over Penn’s heart, her touch prickling with the unnaturally hot and cold sensation of the VapoRub. “Unless you want to get some space or sleep in your own bed or something. I mean, I know it’s more comfortable to be alone sometimes. But I just — I don’t want you to feel like you need to leave for my sake.”

Penn’s breath trembles a little, though she gets it under control with a sharp sniffle. “I just feel bad about … all of it.”

“You don’t have to. I like having you here.”

Penn wheezes out a cough, though it’s quieter than the ones before and doesn’t hook itself deep in her lungs. “I’b keepi’g you up.”

Frankie shrugs. She ducks her head, something a little bashful about the gesture here in the privacy of her room. “Yeah, but I … I sort of like knowing you’re next to me. Just the … break in the silence, after so long. If that makes sense.”

Tears, unprovoked by the burning in her sinuses or menthol on her chest, well up in Penn’s eyes. She lets her tissue fall to the side and reaches to cup the side of Frankie’s face, tipping her head up to catch her lips in a kiss. Her breath shivers between them.

“You really are the sweetest,” she whispers.

Frankie blushes against her as she kisses her back. “Well, I really mean it.” She eases back and wipes the last bit of VapoRub from her fingers onto Penn’s chest. “Plus, it would be pretty shitty of me to not take care of you after getting you so sick.”

Penn coughs on a laugh. “Yeah, that would be sort of shitty.” She sniffles, her nose scrunching against the sudden ticklish dampness leaking along the inside of her nostrils. She fumbles for her tissue in the sheets as a shiver works its way through her breath. “I guess you do — ihh! — do owe mbe a little.”

“I definitely do.” Frankie sits back on her knees and recaps the VapoRub. She rubs her fingers across her pajama pants, wiping away any excess ointment. “Do you want me to set up a movie on my laptop? Sometimes having something on when I don’t feel well helps when I can’t —”

“AISHHHuehhh!” The sneeze explodes hot and damp across Penn’s chest, her fingers still fumbling for her tissue in the sheets. Moisture sticks to the edges of her nostrils, stinging along her overwrought nerves. A groan catches in her throat and snags as her breath shudders again. “Fhihhhfuck.”

Frankie snatches a tissue from the box and presses it into Penn’s hand. As Penn’s breath winds tighter in her chest, Frankie’s fingers trail in a slow circle at her shoulder. “Bless you.”

Penn peers up at her through slitted, teary eyes, her body fighting to slam her eyelids shut again. “Thhihhh! — thank yhihh! — hih’AISHHHihhh! h’EISCHHHHihhh! Hahh’ATSHHHuehhh!”

Her tissue wilts in front of her nose, flooded with the congestion that’s been trapped inside her head all day. She coughs through another groan. “I thingk I’b dyi’g.”

Frankie rips another tissue, then several more, from the box and hands them to her. “No, but you’re definitely really fucking stuffed up.” She tucks the blankets closer over her chest. “So do you think —”

“AHT’SCHHHihhhh!” That sneeze, at least, gets caught in Penn’s handful of tissues. A cough bursts out immediately after, loud but a little less harsh than before, the muscles in her chest unwinding beneath the blanket of chilly ointment.

She lets out a wheezy sigh. “Sorry, that’s … ndot goi’g to stop anytime soon.”

“No, it’s fine. That was sort of the point.” Frankie sets the VapoRub on her nightstand, then crawls back under the blankets. She brushes Penn’s hair back from her face. “So — I was going to turn the lights off, but —”

“Hihhh!” Penn jams her tissues against her nose as the lamplight flickers through the tears in her eyes. She bites down on her tongue and strains against the jagged swell of her chest — if she’s going to keep sneezing like this, she may as well try to keep them as restrained as possible, for Frankie’s sake. “ECKTSHHihhhh! Huh — huh’EXTSCHHHihhh! gkt’TSCHHHuehhh!”

“Bless you.” Frankie gives Penn’s shoulder a gentle nudge. “You can just let yourself sneeze, honey. It really is fine.”

Penn coughs. The inside of her throat feels raw and gritty, irritated all over again from the sneezes. “I’b really gross.”

“You’re sick. That’s sort of part of the whole deal.” Frankie rolls the edge of the sheets back and forth between her fingers. “So — do you want the lights off? I can hold you, or get you more pillows, or whatever sounds best.”

“H-ha’g on.” Penn draws in a shaky breath, then blows her nose. The result is exponentially more productive than any previous attempts earlier today, or really most of the week; with a grimace, she crumples the soaked wad of tissues and pulls several more from the box.

Frankie tucks a kiss against her shoulder. “I should probably get you more tissues, too …”

Penn muffles a jagged, “hih’AISHHhuehh!” of a sneeze in her fresh handful of tissues, then blinks up at Frankie through wet eyes. “Honestly, I should probably mbove to the couch. snnnrk! You really don’t want mbe near you. I’b, like … indescribably gross right ndow.”

Frankie hums a laugh, its edges a little rough with fatigue in the low light. “Well, good thing I’ve already had this.” She bends to press a kiss to the space between Penn’s eyebrows, her lips warm and tender. “If you’re happy here, I’m happy, too.”

That stupid lump from a few moments ago presses up against Penn’s vocal cords, choking back her voice. With a heavy, wet sniffle, she loops her arm around Frankie’s neck. All the things she should say dissolve in a shivery sigh breathed across the tender skin just below Frankie’s ear.

How can you say them, really, when there isn’t a way to do them justice? To thank Frankie for tolerating her just sounds pathetic; to explain any of the things that came before her would be too large a task, especially in her current state. Words, so often her strong suit, fail in this moment.

So instead, she just lets herself curl in closer to Frankie, tissues held close to her nose, the top of her shirt still open and chest sticky with menthol and camphor, tears damp in her eyes.

“You’re sure you don’t mbind?” she whispers.

“Absolutely.” Frankie cups her face in her hands and tucks another kiss against her skin, this time to her forehead. “Believe it or not, I own this crazy contraption called a washing machine. It’s pretty great at cleaning germy clothes.”

Penn laughs into Frankie’s chest. “Shut up.”

“I’m serious.” Another kiss gets pressed to Penn’s temple. “And I have a shower, too. It’s a really convenient way to get rid of —”

“AISHHHuehhh!” The sneeze, bursting out with little warning, gets half caught in Penn’s tissues, half muffled against Frankie’s shirt.

A blush prickles along Penn’s neck. “Fuck … I’b so sorry.”

“I just told you.” Frankie drapes an arm around Penn and tugs her in closer. With her other hand, she reaches for the lamp. The light goes off with a soft click. “Shower and washing machine. Great inventions, both of which I have access to.”

Penn sniffles into her shirt, pushing her nose in deeper to beat back the constant, stinging itch, at least for a moment. “Thangks,” she whispers.

“For what?”

“Just … everythi’g.” Her nose scrunches with another sniffle. “Being so sweet. I just — I’ve ndever …” Her voice fizzles out. She tucks herself in closer and lets her breath out in a quiet sigh. “It just mbeans a lot.”

Frankie’s hand finds Penn’s under the sheets. Her fingers twist together with hers. “It means a lot to me, too.”

Somehow — Penn’s not really sure when, or who does so first — they fall asleep like that, curled up close together. As awful as this cold is, there’s a quiet vulnerability in being able to fall asleep in Frankie’s arms like this — to know that no matter how much noise she makes during the night, no matter how much her nose runs in her sleep or how badly she snores, she’ll still get to wake in the morning and be met by the same adoring sweetness from Frankie she fell asleep to. It makes it all worth it.

#snzfic #awww these two again aaa

16 notes · View notes

prismaticpollen · 7 days

Text

unspoken things || pt. 5

Finally! I have finished the final part of my multi-part vacation story with Frankie, Penn, Eddie, and Clem. It's ... very lengthy, but I'm very happy about it.

(pt. 1) (pt. 2) (pt. 3) (pt. 4)

Summary: Being vulnerable is scary, but Frankie finally works up the nerve to talk to Penn and figure out their relationship, even though the timing of it all sort of sucks. ~12.3k words

Fic below the cut. CW for mentions of a minor injury, mentions of contagion (unintentional), a couple mentions of mess (not graphic), internalized homophobia/transphobia, mentions of past parental neglect, and extremely mild sexual content. Minors, TERFS, and non-kink blogs DNI!

On the final morning of the trip, it’s not the inability to breathe through her nose or the chill of a fever that wakes Frankie, but instead something feathery brushing across her face.

She blinks, eyes already tearing up against the sensation. Honeyed early morning light drips in through the window over the bed, coloring the quilts in a faint glow. It shimmers off a tangled mess of red hair, each strand sticking up in odd directions and shining on Frankie’s pillow — Penn, her back pressed up close to Frankie, curled tight against her, yesterday’s argument forgotten about in sleep.

With a sharp sniffle, Frankie pulls back a little, enough to push up on her elbow and look down at her. Shadows bloom over Penn’s cheeks below her eyelashes like wispy flower petals. A faint flush paints the tops of her cheeks and the end of her nose like a ripe peach, likely part fever and part sunburn from swimming yesterday. Congestion sticks in her breath, evident in the rumbling snores rasping into her parted lips and out through her nose, though their rhythm is even and undisturbed.

She’s perfect, an angel snuggled beneath the soft clouds of the quilts, unperturbed by the weight of her cold as she rests. If Frankie could, she’d stretch the moment out like taffy and keep them both here forever — let them rest together under the comfort of the blankets until they finally felt better, all the darkness between them forgotten.

But they’re not afforded that luxury as the cold tide of guilt washes through Frankie’s chest, casting a jagged shiver through her shoulders.

Last night’s conversation before bed is shrouded in the haze of a fever, the memory blurred around the edges. What’s clear is the look of betrayal in Penn’s eyes from the afternoon — the pain painted across her face, all because of Frankie. All the broken pieces she tried so desperately to hold in place, to stick back together in the silence between them, shattering apart. Penn’s trust in her broken, maybe worse than before.

It’s not the kind of thing that’s easily fixed. While whatever was said before bed was enough to get them both in the same room, that happened in the dark, under the fog of fevers and a cough Penn couldn’t kick. Now it’s the daylight, where things are clearer. It won’t be enough to undo Frankie’s words. Maybe nothing will.

A shudder steals through Frankie’s breath.

She presses her lips together and tenses, squeezing her lungs to keep them from spasming. But still, the itch flares hot and damp in her face. Her breath snags again, sharper this time, and scrapes over her throat.

She twists away from Penn and jams the edge of the quilt against her face.

“Hgt’CHHshhh!” A pang of pressure bursts behind her eyes as hot congestion rushes forward in her sinuses. She wrinkles her nose against the wet cotton of the quilt. A slow, small sniffle crackles over her nerves and makes her chest shudder again. “Ihhh! Ihh’tschhhhuehh!”

Though she keeps her face crushed against the quilt, that second sneeze bursts out less restrained than the first, rough and ragged on her throat and lungs. She swallows, then has to hold the quilt tighter in place to muffle a few tickly coughs. They sting at the back of her throat, aching to burst out louder, but she tenses to keep them as quiet as possible.

Penn deserves to rest. After everything, she won’t ruin that.

With a quiet sigh, she rips a handful of tissues from the box wedged between the pillows and slips out of bed. A small shiver skitters over her skin, though it’s fainter than the ones that shook her yesterday — just a whisper of discomfort in the quiet chill of the morning. When she blinks, the room doesn’t spin, like last night’s fever has let up mostly.

“Hih’GTSHhhmphh!”

Though the nagging itch in her nose only seems to be getting worse.

She muffles that sneeze in her handful of tissues, face flushing with the effort of trying to hold it back. The space below her eyes and inside her nose pulses with a warm, damp tickle. Another ominous shiver ripples through her breath.

Penn’s snores rumble on, blessedly undisturbed by the outburst.

With her nose pinched tight in the tissues, Frankie limps from the bedroom. Beneath her, her ankle twinges in its ACE wrap, though the pain has mellowed into a muted ache that seeps through her toes and halfway up her calf.

The cabin is quiet in the glow of the early morning. With a soft snag in her breath, she goes to the back door — out on the porch, she won’t be a bother while her body works itself up over the crap in her nose. There, she can get herself under control. There, she can start to figure out what to say, or maybe what not to say, to Penn when she eventually wakes up. How to tell her she’s sorry. How to accept it if Penn doesn’t want to hear any of it.

That’s the plan — to be alone. But when she steps out onto the porch, goose bumps budding along her skin in the cool morning air, Clem’s already on the porch swing.

She looks up from a steaming mug nestled in her lap. A soft smile buds across her lips. “Good morning.”

The itch in Frankie’s nose snatches her breath in a ragged gasp before she can eke out a response. She lurches deeper into her tissues. “Hih … hih’GTShhuehh! Hhh … hgkt’CHHshhihh! Heh’exsCHHhuehh!”

Clem grimaces. “Bless you.”

Frankie muffles a cough in the tissues. She scrubs them against her nostrils with a soggy sniffle and reaches back for the door knob. “Sorry … I didn’t kndow you were out here.”

“Don’t apologize.” Clem touches the space beside her. The crocheted sleeve of her sweater pools around her wrist. “You can come sit, if you want.”

Frankie gives her nose a quiet, restrained blow. Another cough shoves itself up into her throat and gets smothered in the tissues. “I don’t thingk you want mbe anywhere ndear you.”

“I really don’t think it matters at this point.” Clem gives the spot next to her a firmer pat. “Seriously, come sit. I know your ankle has to hurt still.”

Tears tickle in the corners of Frankie’s eyes. With a stuffy sigh, she shuffles across the porch to the swing and eases herself down onto the space next to Clem. The morning air burns over her sinuses as she sucks in a breath.

Out here, it’s chillier than in the cabin, the surrounding meadow cloaked in misty morning air as the sun slowly creeps up above the horizon. Birds call out to one another in the trees, flitting back and forth from the road to the woods. Dew drips off the porch’s roof with a soft plnk-plnk-plnk sound. A shiver whispers across Frankie’s neck.

“What are you doi’g out here?” she asks.

That smile from a moment ago blooms on Clem’s lips and sparkles bright in her eyes. She lifts her mug to take a sip of tea, though even with it obscuring part of her face, it can’t hide the joy in her expression. “Waiting to get proposed to.”

Frankie coughs a little. “Oh — I don’t think — that’s ndot —”

Clem giggles. “You don’t have to say anything. I know it’s supposed to be a secret.” She smiles down into the steam off her tea. “It’s not like I know if it’s happening for sure. It’s just that we’ve been talking about it for a while, and when Eddie woke me up this morning … I don’t know. I just have a hunch.”

Frankie twists the edge of her tissues in her lap. There’s a quiet peacefulness in Clem, from her contented smile to the easy way she holds her tea. A kind of trust in Eddie and the security of their relationship that makes her chest ache a little.

“Well.” She clears her throat, though her voice still rasps low. “I hope whatever happens, you’re happy.”

“I will be.” Clem brushes her braids off her shoulders and lifts her mug toward Frankie. “Do you want some tea? It’s lavender chai. I made enough for another cup.”

Frankie shakes her head and tenses against another shiver. She draws one knee up to her chest and hugs her arms around it. The wood panels of the floor rock back and forth with the gentle motion of the swing, a soft blur of copper and golden brown melting together as Clem nudges them back and forth with her bare foot. It’s soothing, enough that in spite of the slight chill of the morning, it could lull her back to sleep, if she let it.

She pushes the heel of her hand against her eye and glances at Clem. “Are you happy?”

Clem hums into her mug as she takes a sip. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just — your vacation sort of … it didn’t go like you wanted.”

“Of course it did.” She nudges her shoulder up against Frankie’s. “I told you, I’m about to get proposed to. And if I’m not, then at least I’m going to go get lost in the woods with the love of my life for a while, and probably get taken to brunch afterward and be ridiculously spoiled. That feels pretty perfect to me.”

Frankie’s breath trembles. She ducks to the side with a jagged “hGT’chhsshhueh!” and pushes her wad of tissues against her nose. “I guess so.”

“Bless you.” Gentle concern pinches the space between Clem’s eyebrows as she drapes a hand on Frankie’s back. “You’re the one things should have gone better for.”

Frankie hides her nose in her tissues with a heavy sniffle. That couldn’t be further from the truth — not after what happened the night before the left, and certainly not after how she’s treated Penn. If anything, catching a cold and spraining her ankle are probably some sort of cosmic punishment for the whole thing. Karma coming back to bite her.

She lifts her shoulders in a weak shrug. “It doesn’t really mbatter.”

That crinkle between Clem’s brows softens a little. She reaches up to brush Frankie’s hair back from her face. “Eddie’s always said you remind him of himself. I see what he means now.”

Frankie scrunches her nose against a second, soggier sniffle. Questions fizz on the tip of her tongue like carbonation ready to burst out of a shaken-up soda can, though she bites them back. “I don’t see it.” She sniffles against her wrist. “I really admbire him, though.”

Clem smiles into her mug. “Well, I think he’s very admirable, but I’m probably a little biased.”

“Hgkt’CHHshhueh!” Frankie catches the sneeze in her tissues, though only just. A blush seeps up her neck as she scrubs her nose into the soaked paper. She really is gross with the incessant sneezes she can no longer hold back and the coughs that make her ribs ache. Probably not exactly what Clem wanted to listen to first thing in the morning.

“Sorry,” she mumbles.

“No, don’t be.” Clem holds the mug toward her. “I’m serious, though — you should drink this. It’ll feel good on your throat.”

Frankie hesitates, though as the twinge in her throat threatens to force up another cough, she lets her fingers slip around the handle of the mug. The blue ceramic is warm from Clem’s skin and the tea inside. The steam wafts over her face in a pleasantly humid cloud; though she can’t smell it, the spices prick along the inside of her nose.

“Thangk you,” she murmurs.

“Of course.” Clem lets her hand settle back in the space between Frankie’s shoulders, where she draws a lazy circle. It’s the sort of touch that feels so intimate when it comes from Penn, the kind Frankie has always ducked away from until recently. But this just feels … safe. Held within a bubble outside the rest of the world, a touch between two friends sharing a drink on a porch surrounded by nothing but the forest.

“You really are stubborn, aren’t you?” Clem murmurs. She says it without judgment, but with a genuine curiosity, like sliver by sliver, she’s adding up the pieces to create a whole picture of who Frankie might be.

That blush tingles sharper in Frankie’s cheeks as she sips the tea. The flavors sing on her taste buds, slightly muted by the congestion in her sinuses but still undeniably sweet with honey and milk and sharp with the perfect blend of cinnamon and ginger and pepper.

“Is that what Eddie says?” she asks.

Clem hums a soft laugh. “Only because he is, too.”

Frankie sniffles into the steam as it rises off the surface of her tea. “Eddie isn’t stubborn.”

“Yeah, he is.” Clem’s toes catch on a crack in the wood. She gives the swing a firmer push. “Especially if he’s worried about me, or anyone else he loves. You know that.”

Frankie traces her thumb over the rim of the mug. Maybe that’s true — he was the one who coaxed her to let him drive her back to her apartment when she was sick at work that first time they finally really talked, who insisted on staying to make sure she was okay, who’s kept pushing and pushing to spend time together no matter how many times she’s come up with reasons not to.

“They’re stubborn in a nice way.” Frankie rubs her nose on the cuff of her sleeve. “They’re ndot …”

“Closed off?” Clem says. “Not now, so much. But that’s taken years, and it’s not like it’s never an issue.” She wraps a braid around her finger. There’s a tiny strand of gold wire coiled around it, and it glitters in the dim sunlight. “It doesn’t just magically get better overnight. It takes a lot of time and trust.”

“And hurti’g people along the way.” Frankie lifts her shoulder to muffle a rough cough. She slumps against the swing’s chain. “I assume you kndow about what happened. With mbe and Penn. That’s why you’re talki’g to mbe.”

“No. I mean, I have a hunch, and Penn’s talked to me a little, but …” Clem shrugs and lowers her hands to her lap. The gold wire flickers against her shoulder. “Like I said, I can see a lot of Eddie in you, and I just … figured you’d want to know.”

Frankie swallows against the grit in her throat. She scrunches her tissues into a ball in her lap. “Did he ever bother you? In the beginning, I mbean.”

“Yeah, but everybody does things that bother everybody else. You’re not unique in that, you know.” Clem pokes her toe against a hole in the wood floor. The swing gives a little shudder beneath them. “I fell in love with him for a million different reasons. That was just … part of the deal. And honestly, once I knew it wasn’t really about me, it was easier to handle. Really, there was … well, there was something really special in knowing I was the one who he was letting in. It felt like a gift every time he trusted me a little more.”

Frankie sniffles into the tea’s steam. Of course, framed that way, it sounds magical — like two people allowed into some kind of secret garden, locked away from the rest of the world, reveling in a place that’s all their own. But that’s Eddie and Clem. The walls Frankie’s built up are hiding things for a reason; they’re things no one would want to see. The ugly, snarly bits inside that mean to protect her, but only ever end up keeping her alone.

“hih’GKTschhhuehh!” She catches the sneeze against her wrist, her body shuddering with the force of it. A heavy sniffle triggers a hoarse cough. She clings more tightly to the tea, its surface shivering.

“Bless you.” Clem gives her shoulder a soft squeeze. “You and Penn sort of disappeared yesterday afternoon. Did you get to talk about anything then?”

“Only a little.” Another cough sputters in Frankie’s throat. She shields it haphazardly against her sleeve, her eyes and the back of her nose stinging again. “We didn’t mbean to. To disappear, I mbean.”

“You’re both sick. We weren’t exactly expecting either of you to want to do anything.” Clem looks past her toward the mist on the meadow. “Did you get things worked out at all?”

“Ndo.” The sunlight catches on the surface of the tea, a tiny moon in a sea of caramel brown. Frankie blinks down at it. That cold, horrible guilt sloshes in her stomach. “I said some stupid thi’gs I shouldn’t have.”

“Well, who among us hasn’t, especially when we’re sick?”

“It’s ndot that simple.”

“Frankie, it really is.” Clem’s gaze flicks back to her, the sunlight catching in the sweetly amused glint of her eyes. “Have you seen the way she looks at you? A misunderstanding doesn’t just undo everything before it. Maybe it makes things a little harder to navigate, but the people who are right for you will sit with you through those hard things and figure it out. Even if it takes some time and patience.”

Frankie watches the hole in the floor drift back and forth beneath the swing. “It just feels like a lot.”

“I know. But you’ll figure it out.”

Frankie sneaks a glance up at her. “How do you know?”

That tender, contented smile from a moment ago tugs at the corner of her lips. “Because I’m going to marry someone who’s a lot like you.”

The back door scrapes against the floor. Eddie pokes their head and shoulders out, hair shower-damp and face a little flushed. “Hey,” they murmur as they slip outside, voice low, as if they might disturb the birds by raising it.

“Hey.” Clem pulls herself up off the swing and pads over toward Eddie. She dips her head to nestle a kiss against their lips. “You smell good.”

Eddie hums a laugh against her. The rising sun melts like warm butter over the two of them, christening them in gold on the porch as they snuggle close together.

Frankie holds her mug tighter in her lap. With the two of them tucked in so close, it’s hard to picture them as anything other than this, as two people with complicated, messy issues that fray at the bond between each other.

Eddie nuzzles a softer kiss against Clem’s forehead, then draws back. “Go put your shoes on so we can go,” they say, giving her shoulder a nudge.

She steals another kiss before waving goodbye to Frankie and slipping inside.

Eddie blinks hazily after her for a moment, then lifts his gaze toward Frankie. He tucks his hands in his pockets. “Sorry to leave you — I honestly thought you’d still be asleep.”

“It’s fine.” Frankie squints against the sting of the sun for a second before jolting against her wrist with a sharp, “hih’GTSHhuehh!” She sniffles. “I’ll probably try to sleep on the couch or somethi’g a’dyway.”

Eddie winces. “Maybe take a decongestant first.”

“Don’t worry about mbe. Today’s about you.” Frankie gives her nose a halfhearted blow in the crumpled remains of her tissues. She rubs her septum against her wrist. “Good luck.”

Eddie bites down on a bashful smile. “Thanks.” They shift back and forth in their hiking boots. “Seriously, though, I — thanks for letting me tell you. It means a lot.”

Frankie hugs one arm around her chest. “Why are you thanki’g me for that? I’m happy you told me.”

Eddie shrugs. He scuffs his boot along the floor. “It’s just nice to have someone who cares.”

Something softens in Frankie’s chest. It’s hard to catch, if you’re not looking from the right angle, but it’s there — the same sort of sensitivity edged in mistrust she carries with her. The surprise anytime someone shows up for her.

It’s been there all along, really — isn’t that why it took both of them months to really get to know each other, no matter how deeply she longed to talk to him every day they spent together at work? Why they’ve never really spent time together outside of the bookshop until now?

Maybe Clem wasn’t so far off in seeing the resemblance between the two of them.

She swallows against a warm knot in her throat. “I can’t wait to hear how it goes.”

Frankie stays on the swing for a long time even after Eddie and Clem have left, watching the mist melt away from the grass. As the sun settles higher in the sky, the chill of guilt laps at her chest, a tide that doesn’t want to turn.

Clem may be right — but Clem didn’t hear the things she said to Penn, and all the things she didn’t say. Didn’t see the way Penn looked at her with so much heartbreak, or how the life seemed to drain out of her when Frankie finally brought up the kiss. Clem can pick up on some of the similarities between her and Eddie, but she doesn’t know the nuances of it all. Hasn’t been there for the way every touch between the two of them somehow simultaneously makes everything go still and stirs something in Frankie that makes her want to tear herself apart trying to understand what it all means.

No one’s been there, except for Penn.

Frankie shoves her crumpled tissues in the pocket of her pajamas. Despite the ungodly congestion bearing down on her cheeks and forehead like wet concrete, the constant buzzing itch has backed off enough she can trust herself to take shallow, gaspy little breaths through parted lips.

She trudges inside to the kitchen for water. She’ll go lie down on the couch, far away enough from Penn to not disturb her. Then, when Penn’s up, they can talk, if Penn wants. And if not … well, she’ll have her answers.

Frankie fills a glass at the sink but pauses with it halfway to her mouth. A ragged cough comes from the bedroom, harsh and deep.

In spite of everything, that pang that’s become so familiar in her chest — part worry, part tenderness — cups its fingers around her heart and squeezes.

Frankie grabs another glass from the cabinet and fills it. As quietly as she can, she limps to the bedroom. After everything last night, a queasy flutter sits just beyond her throat. There’s so much to say — so much to try to repair, to undo, to put back together. Trying to untangle it all is like pulling apart bits of string stuck together by glue, her head swollen and slow. And Penn could want none of it. Could turn her away with bitter words, or worse, silence.

Snores greet her at the bedroom door, rumbling loud from Penn’s pillow, and that ache in Frankie’s chest softens. She makes her way closer to the bed, as light on her feet as she can be with the way her ankle still wants to wobble, and sets both glasses of water on the nightstand.

Beside her, Penn snuggles into her pillow, lips parted in a soft O-shape and nose flushed an angry shade of red. The edges of her nostrils are chapped and damp, glistening with every breath she drags in. When she inhales, she coughs in her sleep — enough to carve a half moon in her forehead, though not enough to rouse her. It’s the same barky, painful cough from last night that sounds like it’s tearing up her chest and throat.

Frankie lowers herself to the edge of the bed. She traces her finger over the stitches on the quilt.

They’re barely touching — just a tiny point of contact shared between Frankie’s lower back and Penn’s hip — but Penn whines softly into her pillow and curls a little closer, like a newborn kitten blindly searching for warmth.

Frankie bites down on her lip. Something swells up in her, a siren song that swallows up the guilt and begs her to lie down and cradle Penn close. It wraps around her muscles and crushes the breath from her lungs, vining up around her throat until tears prick at the backs of her eyes. Everything in her cries out in harmony for Penn, only for Penn, because what else is there right now?

It’s connection, but deeper — not the casual sort of comfort she felt out on the swing with Clem, or the quiet sense of being known that she and Eddie share. No, this is the ache she’s tried to ignore so many times finally crashing over her, the one she’s shoved to the back of her mind to worry about later, always later. But always, it’s crept back in, possessing her with thoughts and feelings that seemed so impossible. The dreams of other people, but certainly not anything meant for her.

No matter how hard she fought it, somehow, this woman she barely knew two months ago has come to hold her whole world in the curve of her pinky finger, stolen it right out from under her. It’s not really fair, the whole thing. But still, if holding up the sky on a sprained ankle and a pair of clumsy knees would make her feel better, who would she be to deny her that?

Frankie pulls a loose thread from the quilt. It’s a silly thought — the sort of thought people in love have.

She peeks up at Penn. All the confusion, all the unknowing, wells up inside her, enough to drown her. It’s too much to understand — too much to wade through and figure out, especially now. It was already complicated enough before they kissed, and now that they’ve fought, everything just feels backwards. There are so many things to say, but in the moment, the words always jam up in her throat, or spill out in some mangled version of how she arranged them in her head.

Her mother’s scolding, given during every argument, at every family dinner when an aunt asked how school was, under the ugly fluorescent light of her parents’ kitchen when she tried to summon the courage to mention the idea of opening a bookstore, still burns the tips of her ears: “Don’t be difficult, Frankie. We don’t have all day. Hurry up and speak!”

She tried, always. But always, her voice got locked up behind her vocal cord, tucked away where she couldn’t say anything that might lead to further harm.

She swallows. On Penn’s nightstand, next to her phone and the glasses of water, is one of her reporter notepads with several different times written on it. A nub of a pencil rests beside it.

Not a perfect solution, maybe. But a life raft nonetheless. A start.

Frankie eases herself back up onto her feet and gathers the various cold medicines from last night. She takes several doses with her water, then sets the bottles on Penn’s nightstand. Her fingers shake a little as she grasps the notepad and pencil. But once the lead touches the paper, the words spill out — a little sloppy, but genuine.

Penn —

I’m scared. I’m scared of messing things up, and I’m scared of getting hurt, and I’m scared more than anything of losing you. It’s why everything went wrong the other night, and why I’ve said stupid things. I’m so sorry. You deserve the world. I wish I could give it to you.

(I am realizing how corny that sounds, but I mean it.)

I’m still scared, but I want to make it better. I want to try to be brave for you. Whatever that ends up looking like.

If it’s too much, and you don’t want to, I understand. But I just needed you to know.

— Frankie

A soft touch on her forehead tugs at the strings of Frankie’s consciousness, drawing her back to her body. With a ragged groan that cuts off in a cough, she blinks.

Penn’s face, cheeks flushed and eyes a little puffy behind her glasses, hangs only a few inches away.

A smile buds on her lips. “Good morning. Or afternoon, really.”

Frankie shoves the heel of her hand against her eye. Another cough snags in her throat. She muffles it in the blanket draped over her lap — when did that get there? And when did she lie down on the couch anyway?

And why, after everything, is Penn looking at her with such … affection?

“I didn’t mbean to fall asleep.” Her nose scrunches against a sniffle, the air whistling over her swollen sinuses. Whatever medicine she took earlier seems to have worn off, or to not have been strong enough against the force of her cold — congestion throbs in her face, and that obnoxious tickle from this morning is back, stinging along the backs of her eyes, down the bridge of her nose, and into her throat.

“You obviously needed it. The sleep, I mean.” Penn rises from the floor where she was kneeling and twists to grab something from the coffee table behind her. When she turns back toward Frankie, a mug steams in her hand. “How are you feeling? You felt like you spiked a fever again around an hour ago, but I think it’s back down again.”

Frankie blinks at her. This is so backwards — given how sick she sounded last night and this morning, of the two of them, Penn should be the one just waking up, barely able to breathe; Penn should be the one under a blanket, allowing Frankie to coax her to drink tea and nibble on toast while she rests.

“Hih’itschhhhuehh!”

The sneeze comes over Frankie without warning, jolting her deeper into her blanket as it tears at her throat and jars the gunk in her face. She allows herself a soft groan. “Fuck … sorry.”

“Bless you.” A quiet fondness softens the edges of Penn’s face. “Just curious, are you capable of getting a normal, mild cold, or do you only ever get incredibly sick?”

Frankie bites her lip as she rubs her nose into the blanket. Under Penn’s eye, a strange sense of self-consciousness sings along her nerves, flickering hot and cold the same way her fever did yesterday. “Sorry,” she mumbles again. “I think I’b more trouble than I’b worth.”

It’s a joke, though it comes out more self-deprecating than she means it to, falling flat in the space between them.

Penn’s face crumples with a wince. “Don’t say that.”

“Sorry.” Frankie coughs into the blanket. She shivers as she pushes herself up on her elbow. “I guess ndo, generally. To answer your question.”

Penn waits for Frankie to finish sitting up, then settles into the spot on the couch beside her. She bends toward the table again to grab something else — a box of tissues. “Do you want medicine yet?” she asks, her voice quiet, the teasing affection from a second ago gone.

Frankie shakes her head and leans back against the couch with a heavy sniffle, grimacing at the pulsing weight in her face. Despite the warm, dappled light of early afternoon speckling the floor of the den, she shivers again. She’s done it again — ruined things with just a few words. How many more times can Penn tolerate that before it’s really, truly over?

She muffles another cough in her sleeve before looking back at Penn. Her hair curls softly over her forehead, slightly damp around the edges, and she’s changed out of her sweats from last night and into a fresh pair of pink plaid PJ pants and a t-shirt with a cozy knitted cardigan on top.

“How long have you been up?” she asks.

“Not super long.” Penn bites her lip for a moment, then lets her expression relax. She holds the mug toward her. “I mean, long enough to take a bath and get breakfast and make tea.”

Frankie frowns as she takes the mug. It’s smaller than the one Clem gave her earlier but just as warm, its ceramic kissing her skin with comfort as the steam wafts over her face. “I … was sort of thinking I’d mbake breakfast for you.”

Penn pulls a handful of tissues from the box. She presses them into Frankie’s free hand. Her touch drifts to Frankie’s forehead and brushes across her brow, feather-light. “You can’t breathe. And you have a fever again.”

“Ndeither could you, earlier.” Frankie rubs her nose into the tissues, though it doesn’t abate the itch in her sinuses. Her breath snags with a jagged gasp in her chest. She clamps the tissues tight to her face. “Hih’itSCHhhihh!”

“Bless you.” Penn sets a tentative hand on her back. She lets a second pass before she rubs a light, soothing circle between her shoulders. “You sound terrible.”

Frankie squints at her through teary eyes. “How do you ndot sound terrible?”

“I slept in and then took an unhealthy amount of medicine.” Penn bumps her shoulder up against Frankie’s. That soft, teasing tone from a moment ago slips back into her voice. “Plus I didn’t sprain my ankle, and spike a fever, and then keep acting like everything was fine.”

Frankie folds her tissues into a tiny square in her lap. “I’b sorry.” She sniffles and sneaks a glance at Penn from the corner of her eye. “Are we still in a fight?”

“Not exactly.” A smile tugs the edge of Penn’s mouth. “It’s kind of hard to stay mad when you sound so pitiful.”

Frankie rolls her eyes. “Like you weren’t coughing up your lungs last ndight.”

Penn hums a laugh and pulls her legs up on the couch to sit crisscross, her knee nudging up against Frankie’s thigh. She hooks her fingers together in her lap and smooths the pad of her thumb over her knuckle. The sun flickers off her eyelashes as a soft rasp settles in her voice, like wind whispering over the reeds near the road. “That was a really sweet note, by the way. The one you left by the bed.”

“Oh.” Frankie blinks down at the surface of her tea. The steam sits in a misty cloud over it. “Uh. Did it — was it coherent?”

“Yes, it was coherent.” Penn peeks up at her from the corner of her eye. “It meant a lot. You opening up like that.”

Frankie rubs her knuckle back and forth against the tip of her nose. “It doesn’t feel like enough.”

“Enough how? I’m not expecting you to, like, fall on the ground and beg for forgiveness.”

“I just mbean … I don’t kndow. I feel like I’ve fucked things up all week.”

“Well, the note was a good start to fixing things. You answered a lot of questions I had.” Penn sniffles and tucks her hands into the cuffs of her cardigan. “I mean, I feel like I’m not crazy now, at least, or like I didn’t totally misread everything. We’re both just … dealing with messy things, and it’s making things confusing.”

“You’re ndot messy.” Frankie presses her sleeve against her septum. “You’re like … the ndicest, mbost open person I’ve ever mbet.”

Penn bites the inside of her cheek, though her dimple pops out anyway. Her fingers poke out from inside her cardigan, just enough to fiddle with a loose thread on the left sleeve’s cuff. “I am most certainly messy. I’m just pretty good at hiding it, usually.”

“I don’t believe you.” Frankie scrunches her nose against a sniffle that burns along her sinuses. “So … I guess … what do we do ndow?”

“I don’t know.” Penn tugs the thread loose and drops it on the ground. She shoves her sleeves up around her forearms. “I want to talk about things, but I don’t want to overwhelm you or anything, and the timing of it all is a little —”

“Hgt’CHshh!” Frankie’s head throbs, pressure bursting behind the pinch of her fingers around her nose. She lets out a shaky breath. “Sorry.”

“Bless you.” Penn pulls more tissues from the box and hands them to her. “But that’s what I mean. Just, the timing isn’t great. You should be resting. We both should, I guess.”

Frankie peers up at her from behind the tissues. “We can rest and talk.”

“I guess so. It’s just — it’s just the sort of thing that’s hard to talk about. Or that takes time.” Penn closes her eyes and lets her head flop against the back of the couch. A wry smile pulls at her mouth as one eye cracks open to look at Frankie. “I think it’s really unfair you’re my best friend right now.”

Frankie takes a long sip of tea. It flows warm over her throat and pricks with the vaguely spiced taste of mint and ginger. “What do you mean?”

“I really need a best friend to talk to about you and me.”

“You could talk to Clem.”

“Yeah, but I barely got to know Clem before this trip. Not that she wouldn’t listen, but it’s just — it’s not what I need.” Penn muffles a cough in her sleeve. It’s softer than the ones from last night, though it still catches a little in her chest, the telltale signs of congestion snagging at the end. She sniffles. “I need someone who really gets me, and … that’s you. But it’s not exactly like I can talk to you about … everything.”

Frankie lets herself droop a little, scooting her back up against the arm of the couch with her mug of tea nestled in her lap. Allowing space between the two of them — just enough so she can breathe without feeling the tingly static of Penn’s body so close to hers.

She tucks her leg under herself, letting her bad ankle stick out toward Penn. “You could.”

Penn lets her head loll to the side to face Frankie, one eyebrow quirked high. “Really? So I can tell you, as a best friend, about how badly I want to kiss you, not as a best friend, and that wouldn’t be weird?”

That strange creature that hatched in the bookstore two months ago flaps its wings against Frankie’s ribs. She swallows. “You can’t possibly want to kiss mbe right now.”

The edge of Frankie’s blanket drapes against Penn’s knee. She runs a finger over the faded blue cotton and breathes a soft sigh. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Just — deflect like that. Act like it isn’t remotely plausible I’d want to kiss you.”

Frankie sniffles down into the steam off her tea. She drags her thumb over the rim of the mug. “Like you said. We’re deali’g with mbessy things.”

“Yeah, I know, I just … I wish I could show you I mean it, and you’d believe it.” Penn sniffles and nudges her wrist up against her nose. The smile she casts toward Frankie droops a little at the edges with something like sympathy or sadness. “It’s okay. I mean, I don’t blame you. I just … wish you could see it, is all.”

A sigh catches in Frankie’s throat. “Yeah, mbe too.” She blinks into the steam, letting it coat her eyelashes in a warm, damp film. That thing in her chest beats harder, working its way up into her throat and flapping its wings just behind her vocal cords.

She clears her throat, though her voice still comes out low and raspy. “For the record … I want to kiss you, too. I wanted to, back before we left. For a long time. You mbake me feel like … like a teenage boy tryi’g to navigate all these new feeli’gs and it’s …” Her cheeks flush hot. She bites her lip. “That’s ndot the point. It’s just that I got too stuck in mby own head, and I mbessed everythi’g up.”

Penn giggles, though it peters out into a hoarse cough. She rubs her nose against her sleeve and leans back against the couch to look at Frankie, face bright with mirth. “Tell me more about the teenage boy part.”

Frankie shields her face behind her mug as she takes a sip of tea. “Absolutely not.”

Penn pokes her leg. “Come on, it’s cute.”

“It’s so ndot.” Frankie clears her throat again and cups her hands around her mug. She blows gently on the steam, just enough to carve a hole through the white fog. “I guess I feel like a teenager in general, honestly. I fucked around in college a little, but I’ve ndever had any kind of serious relationship. I mbean … ndot that this is serious. I guess I don’t know what this is. It’s just that I care about you, and I didn’t really care about those people.”

Penn draws her knees up toward her chest with a sharper sniffle. “You know I’ve never had a relationship, either, right?”

“HGT’schihh!” Frankie muffles the sneeze against her shoulder. With a damp sniffle, she casts a hazily dubious look at Penn. “I don’t believe you.”

Penn snorts on a laugh, though it makes her cough again. She pushes a hand under her glasses to rub at her eyes, then her nose. “I was a little busy dealing with school and transitioning and work. There wasn’t much time in there to get serious with anyone.”

“But you’ve hooked up with people.”

Amusement plays in Penn’s eyes. “Do I give that impression?”

“Ndo, it’s just — you’re just — I don’t know, just so effortlessly hot, so I thought …” Frankie lifts her mug over her face and takes a tiny sip of tea. She’s said too much again, let her words shoot out of her mouth without thinking.

Penn’s eyes are on her, teeth holding back a grin.

Frankie lowers her mug back to her lap and pushes a knuckle against the space between her eyebrows. “Uh. Just — I figured it would be easy for you, I guess.”

“I don’t know.” Penn sniffles, her nostrils quivering a little despite the harsh rub she gives them on the back of her wrist. The soft blur of congestion sticks to the edges of her voice, like whatever medicine she took is starting to wear off. “It’s ndot like I haven’t done anything, it’s just … I think I ndeed more of a connection to want to do anything, and — snff! — I was always busy, so — snrff! — I just didn’t bother. Which felt fine in the mboment, although ndow I guess I feel a little stunted.”

Frankie swallows another sip of tea. “Yeah, well … that mbakes two of us, I guess.”

Penn sniffles again, the sound more desperate this time, enough that her eyes flicker into narrow slits and she presses the back of her hand against her nose. Her lips fall open into a soft O, and a second later, her breath snags in her chest. “Hih’ATSCHHuehh! Hihh! Hihh’ITSCHHihhh! Ohh …” She groans a little, one hand cupped against her nose as she fishes for a tissue.

Frankie winces. “Bless you.” She gives her ankle a gentle stretch, just enough to nudge her toes up against Penn’s thigh. “Are you feeli’g worse?”

“Hih’ETSCHHuehh!” Penn bobs forward into her hand with the sneeze, this one triggering a barky cough that crackles low in her chest for several long moments. Finally, with another groan, she snags a tissue from the box and buries her nose in it. She peers at Frankie through teary, squinted eyes. “I’b fine. snnrf! I’m just … sort of tired and itchy and gross.”

Frankie holds out her mug. “Have a sip. Talki’g so mbuch probably isn’t helping your cough.”

Penn eyes the mug for a moment, then takes it. She lets her crumpled tissue fall to her lap and nestles both hands around the mug, her fingers cradling it close as she sips the tea.

That pull of concern snags in Frankie’s chest. It isn’t one thing in particular, just sort of … well, everything. The soft tug of fatigue in Penn’s shoulders, the shadows beneath her eyes, the stuffiness starting to whistle on her breath.

Frankie leans forward to set a hand on Penn’s arm. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asks. “I know you took mbedicine and everythi’g, but you look tired.”

“I’m okay for now.” Penn lowers the mug to her lap. “I’ll probably crash tonight. Some colds are just like that — I do okay during the day, but then I’m up coughing all night. I don’t know why.”

Frankie smooths her thumb in a slow circle over Penn’s upper arm. “I’m sorry. Can I do anythi’g?”

“No.” A tiny crinkle forms in the bridge of Penn’s nose as she inhales with a quiet sniffle. She bites her lip, then peeks at Frankie. The soft brown of her eyes glows bright in the afternoon light. There’s a sharp edge of vulnerability there that cuts into that tender place in Frankie’s chest.

“Would we be talking about this if I weren’t sick?” she asks. “I mean — it just seems like you were sort of planning on keeping everything to yourself. And I’m glad you told me, but I just — I don’t want it to just be because of that. Like you feel obligated to talk about it now or something.”

Frankie drops her hand to her lap. She snags the edge of her blanket between her fingers and rolls it back and forth. The conversation from just before they both fell asleep, blanketed under the fog of fever and fear that things had been irreparably harmed between them, drifts back into her mind.

She glances back up at Penn. She’s no longer looking at Frankie, instead staring down at her tea, her fingers tangled in a knot in her lap. Teeth biting down into the soft pink of her lip.

Maybe Penn’s right. Even if she’s kept it tucked away so well, maybe even she has her own messy things from the past she’s dealing with.

“We would have,” Frankie says. “Eventually. I … I don’t kndow when I would have gotten the nerve up. Honestly, I’ve wanted to talk about this since … well, a long time. Or not talk about it, necessarily, but I just — I wanted to understand what we were. But it was scary, so it was just … easier to ignore it.”

Penn nods. She lets go of her fingers and gives them one, two, three, four taps along the rim of the mug. “Does it make any more sense now?”

“I don’t know. Ndot exactly.” Frankie sniffles and pushes her knuckles under her nostrils. “Does it for you?”

A smile, soft and sweet, touches Penn’s mouth. She runs the tip of her finger around the rim of the mug, caressing the spot Frankie’s lips touched a few moments ago.

“Frankie, I’ve liked you since I met you,” she says quietly. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for, like, an embarrassingly long time. But I don’t want to fuck things up, or make you uncomfortable, or ruin what we have. I’d rather just stay friends than lose you.”

The thing in Frankie’s throat flutters high, a moth trying to smother her. She cups a hand around her throat to still it, her voice getting a little lost behind the beating of her heart. “Ndo, I … I’ve wanted that, too,” she murmurs. “I really have. I’ve just been scared. I’m still scared, but I want to try.”

Penn peeks at her. “You do?”

Frankie nods. She lets her hand fall away to tugs at the edge of her blanket again. A tiny fray runs through the hem, sprouting threads like fresh buds rising from old, worn soil.

“I get it if you don’t, though.” Frankie nudges her shoulder up against her nose, though her breath still trembles. She lifts her shoulder higher, ducking into it with a rough “hih’GTSHhhihh!” that makes her cough a couple of times. She glances up at Penn with damp eyes. “It’s — it’s mbessy, like you said, and we’d have to go slow, and it wouldn’t be easy.”

“I don’t need easy.”

“Are you sure?” Frankie points at her ankle. “Not being easy is how we got into this whole mess, sort of.”

“I’m sure.”

Penn reaches toward her — slow enough she can pull away if she wants to. But Frankie lets her take her hand, lets her fold her fingers around hers and trace a soft line over her wrist.

Frankie closes her eyes and presses the tip of her thumb against Penn’s wrist, right where her heartbeat is. It flutters wildly against her skin, a ladybug flapping its wings under her thumb, and she lets the aliveness of it soothe the beating in her own chest.

It’s the sort of silly, sappy thing people in love think about. But maybe that’s what she is — someone who, somehow, without really meaning to, slipped off the edge of some kind of cliff. Plunged into a sea she’d only ever seen from a distance.

On her own, it feels a little like drowning. But not here with Penn. Not with her hand held tenderly, a lifeline to safety.

Penn sets the mug on the coffee table and shifts, turning sideways so her knee bumps up against the back of the couch and she faces Frankie. She takes Frankie’s other hand in hers, holding them both tight in her lap. The afternoon sun glows in her hair and off the soft flush coloring her nose and cheeks.

“It can be as messy as it needs to be,” she says. “I think the important part is that we know we can trust each other, and we do our best to talk about things, even when it’s hard. How do you feel about that?”

Frankie bites down on a smile. “I’d like that.”

Penn lifts both their hands, half-hiding her own smile behind them. “Me too.”

Frankie sniffles, nudging her shoulder up against her nose again. The skin along her septum and nostrils is starting to sting a little in that too-hot, overly tender way it always does with bad colds. “So … what ndow?”

“We get you something to eat, and medicine so you can actually breathe, and then … whatever we want.” Penn pecks a kiss against Frankie’s knuckles, light and quick, but still enough to make Frankie’s insides go fizzy. “We have all the time to do anything.”

“Well, that’s probably true.” Frankie muffles a cough against her shoulder. “I doubt Eddie and Clem will be back anytimbe soon.”

Penn laughs. “I just mean we can take things slow, like you said.” She lets go of one of Frankie’s hands to tuck the blanket in around her waist. “What are they doing, anyway?”

Frankie smiles down at her lap. “Somethi’g special. I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you, but … you’ll find out.”

Something bright gleams in Penn’s eyes. “I think I have a pretty good guess.”

“I bet you do.” Frankie draws in a shaky breath, then catches a hoarse “hih’TSCHuehh!” against the back of her wrist. She shudders with a ragged cough.

“Bless you.” Penn sets the box of tissues on Frankie’s lap. “Stay here and I’ll get you fresh tea and something to eat.”

“I can do it.”

“I know, but I’d like to.” Penn cups her hand against the side of Frankie’s face and pushes her hair back from her forehead. Her eyes are softly patient behind her glasses. “I like taking care of you. If you’ll let me.”

Like bread rising in the oven, Frankie’s stomach flutters up toward her chest and goes softly warm. She sniffles. “That would be really ndice.”

Penn watches her with that tender gaze for another moment, then leans forward to press a kiss to her forehead, just above the spot between her brows.

A thrill ripples across Frankie’s body, almost like when they kissed out on the balcony, but softer. She leans into Penn’s touch, letting her nuzzle in closer for a moment, just long enough to whisper another kiss across her skin before pulling away.

Without a word, Penn pushes up off the couch and turns, though Frankie still catches a glimpse of the soft blush coloring her neck up into her face.

“I’ll grab medicine, too, and the blankets,” Penn says over her shoulder. “We can make a little nest out here.”

Frankie snuggles deeper into her blanket. Warm fills her to the brim — not the oversensitive, stinging kind that comes with a fever, but the comfort of knowing she’s safe. That no matter what, they really are in this together.

“That sounds good,” she says.

That afternoon, every minute Frankie spends in Penn’s arms feels like coming home after being away for a long, long time.

They lie on a blanket spread across the grass behind the cabin, watching the sky melt from blue into a soft shade of lavender. Penn’s head is tucked against Frankie’s shoulder, the soft wisps of her hair tickling against Frankie’s cheek each time the wind blows.

She shivers and curls in closer. “Do you see anythi’g?”

Frankie reaches over to brush Penn’s hair back from her forehead. Her voice is soft around the edges now — just as she said earlier, all her symptoms have started to catch up with her, the congestion and cough kicking back up late in the afternoon, the stubborn kind that won’t give up easily despite the medicine Frankie gave her with dinner, before they vacated the cabin to give Clem and Eddie some privacy. It seemed like the right thing to do after they came home late this afternoon, nearly bursting with excitement, Clem’s ring glittering bright on her hand.

“No,” she murmurs. Her own voice has cleared up, though it’s frayed along the edges, worn down to a hoarse thread. She pushes up on her elbow a little, just enough to look down at Penn as she runs her fingers through her hair. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t kndow. Airplanes or bats or birds or shooti’g stars, eventually.” Penn’s nose scrunches with a sniffle. She curls into her shoulder with a harsh, rattling cough. It growls deep in her lungs and shudders all the way through her, flushing her cheeks hot in the pale twilight.

Frankie hums a sympathetic sound and lowers her hand. She lets it settle on Penn’s t-shirt at the top of her sternum. “You sound so sick,” she murmurs.

Penn catches her hand in hers and tugs it to her lips. She brushes a kiss against Frankie’s knuckles, scattering goose bumps up her arm. “I told you … it just happens at ndight.”

Frankie tugs her hand back with Penn’s. She whispers a kiss over Penn’s fingers. “I’m still sorry,” she murmurs.

Penn just smiles up at her, a hazy sort of smile, half sleepiness, half the dazedly infatuated look Frankie knows she’d see if she were to look in a mirror.

It’s been like this all afternoon — all tentative little touches and kisses traded back and forth, pressed to one another’s foreheads or breathed over fingers or knuckles or hands. An exploration in this strange, new openness they share. No more holding back or hiding behind some needless boundary built around a label or fears of the future.

Then again, those lines were blurred from the start, each time they fell asleep against one another or held hands without saying anything pushing them closer and closer to something unknown. It’s just that now, it isn’t unspoken. They don’t have to wonder what it means when they tuck themselves close to each other, or nuzzle a kiss against the other’s cheek, or hook their pinky fingers together.

“Hihhh …” Penn’s breath gives a jagged shudder, her eyes squeezing shut behind her glasses. Her nose twitches and scrunches with a stuffy breath, then another, before she has to crunch forward into her sleeve.

“Hiih’KTSHHHuehhh!” The sneeze comes out sharp and woefully congested; though it lacks the loudly vocal quality that’s so typical of her, her voice worn away by her cough, it’s still forceful enough to shake her body. The harshness of it makes her cough immediately afterward, and then keep coughing, into her sleeve.

Frankie rubs her hand up and down Penn’s back. “Bless you.” She digs one of the few clean tissues out of the pocket of her sweatpants and passes it to Penn. A frown tugs at her mouth as Penn blows her nose with a swollen, impassable sound. “Can you take any more time off work? You shouldn’t have to go in like this.”

“I thingk Lena would flip if I took that mbuch timbe off.” Penn muffles a couple more stray coughs in the tissue, then falls back against the blanket. She sniffles up at the sky. “But I mbean, we have all weekend. I’ll just drink gallons of tea and sleep for twenty-four hours straight and see if that helps.”

Frankie breathes a laugh. She pokes Penn’s shoulder. “That’s not how it works.”

“Hih’XTSHHihhhh!” Penn jerks to the side with the sneeze. She shudders with a handful of coughs, letting them out toward the grass, away from Frankie. When they let up after a few moments, she settles on her back again and dabs at her nose with the crumpled tissue. “Do you have a better suggestion?”

“Not really.” Frankie waits for her to lower the tissue again in her right hand, then snags her left. She taps her fingertips along Penn’s knuckles as she holds it to her chest. “I could make you soup.”

“You have to get well, too, you kndow.” Penn curls onto her side, nuzzling her face into the blanket. She hooks one leg over Frankie’s, drawing her in closer until her hips bump up against Frankie’s. She cups a hand against Frankie’s neck, her fingers cradling her jaw, lips just a breath away. “I bet you’re worki’g all weekend.”

“Maybe.” Frankie sniffles and lets her hand tangle in Penn’s hair again. She wraps a wispy little strand above Penn’s ear around her finger. “Maybe not, though. I might let Eddie and Jack handle it, especially if someone needed me.”

Penn bites down on a smile. “You’re supposed to be taki’g care of yourself, silly. I mbean, even if you weren’t sick, you can barely walk.”

“Well, good thing I have a stool I can sit on, then.” Frankie smooths her fingers back through Penn’s hair, her touch gentle over Penn’s scalp. She traces her thumb against the slightly too-warm skin of her temple. “I’m sorry things ended up like this. I mean — I just know this probably isn’t how you expected to spend your vacation.”

“Hih’XTSCHuhh!” The sneeze jerks Penn away from Frankie’s touch and gets muffled half in the crumpled tissue, half in Penn’s hands. She ducks down toward her chest with another set of jagged coughs, pushing the tissue up against her nose. Her breath comes back to her with a raspy wheeze that makes Frankie’s chest ache.

Frankie fishes out another clean tissue from her pocket and presses it into her hand. “Bless you.”

“Thangk you.” Penn tents the tissue over her nose, though she doesn’t blow it, like her sinuses are too inflamed to bother. She inhales with a heavy, stuffy sniffle and blinks at Frankie. “You kndow I had fun, though. Right?”

Frankie’s brow lifts. “Enough to outweigh getting sick? And dealing with Lena’s bullshit when we’re back home?”

“I’d have to deal with her anyway.” Penn shoves the tissues in the pocket of her cardigan. She lets her hand settle back on Frankie’s shoulder, her touch heavy with fatigue and the same sincerity that reflects in her eyes. “But yeah. I mbean — I don’t kndow if fun’s the right word for the past few days. But I’b glad we did this.”

She lets her forehead rest against Frankie’s, her eyes fluttering shut behind her glasses, their noses almost touching. A smile flickers along the edge of her lips. She cracks one eye open to peek at Frankie. “And I’b pretty sure I’ll be really, really well taken care of when we’re home, if Tim doesn’t lock mbe in mby room again.”

“Well, if he does, I’ll come rescue you.” Frankie scoots in closer to her, letting one arm wrap around her to shield her from the chill of the evening. It’s hardly cool out, though with the soft breath of the breeze over the two of them, and the flush of Penn’s cold coloring her cheeks pink, shivers ghost across her body — light, barely there things that make her nuzzle in closer to Frankie.

Penn sniffles as she tucks her face into the curve of Frankie’s neck, her breath warm on Frankie’s skin. “Is this okay?” she whispers.

The question, soft and sweet, makes Frankie’s stomach flutter with the kind of affection that feels nearly too tender to really look at. She dips her head to press a kiss into Penn’s hair. “It absolutely is.”

Penn tucks her arms in close, huddling up against Frankie as the breeze trickles across the two of them. She sniffles again, sharper this time. A cough catches in her throat, though she keeps it bitten back between her teeth, muffled into a weak thing that hardly sounds relieving.

Frankie kisses the top of her head again. Through the faint congestion tingling at the back of her sinuses, she breathes in the gently warm rosemary and lavender scent from her scalp. And when a shiver ripples through her, sharper than all the others, she holds onto her tighter.

“Let me make you tea when we go inside,” Frankie whispers. “I … I want to take care of you.”

Penn hums a quiet, pleased sound, though it catches in her throat. A rough cough shudders through her, bursting hot against Frankie’s skin. She pushes back a little, muffling the handful of remaining coughs against her wrist and rubbing her nose against her sleeve after. Fatigued tears gather at the corners of her eyes. “Sorry … they sort of sneak up on mbe.”

Frankie’s brow pinches. “It sounds like it hurts to breathe.”

“Ndo. I mbean, I’b just … sort of congested and gross, but it’s fine.” Penn clears her throat, then ducks to smother a stray cough. She sniffles. “Tea would be ndice, though.”

“Yeah?” Frankie reaches up to brush Penn’s hair back from her face. She lets her hand rest back in that spot above her ear, cradling Penn’s head a little as she settles back beside her again. “I have Tiger Balm, too, if you want some for your chest. I use it for my joints, but it has menthol and eucalyptus and stuff in it, so it would probably help.”

“That’s smbart.” Penn’s eyelashes whisper against her cheeks, shimmering copper and lilac in the dusk as she looks down into the space between them. “Honestly, I don’t really care what we do. I just kinda want you to hold mbe, if … if that would be okay.”

Frankie’s breath flutters in her throat, a fragile thing, like a just-hatched butterfly. It’s a simple request, something they’ve done plenty of times before with no discussion. But so many things aren’t like they used to be.

When Penn’s eyes lift to hers with that same hunger she saw the night they kissed, there’s no fear — only warmth, filling her up like a sunbeam from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.

She nuzzles closer on the blanket and closes that tiny gap between them, cradling Penn’s face in both hands as she dips her head to tuck a kiss against her lips.

Penn makes a soft sound into her mouth, something between a sigh and a quiet, sweet laugh. She pulls her closer, arm hooked loosely around Frankie’s neck, and kisses her back, her breath flickering between both their lips.

Frankie lingers there for a moment, gentle, slow, not in a rush to go anywhere. Something colorful and bright fills her, like a thousand buds blooming inside her chest, sparkling orange and fuschia and violet as she allows herself to taste the sweetness of Penn’s lips, to feel the soft rush of her breath against her skin, to let her body wind itself as close to Penn as it can. Nothing but heat and heavy breathing and hunger, the rest of the world drowned out by the whir of the crickets. It’s chaste, not the kind of kiss you’d see on TV and giggle over with your friends or sneak away to watch in private, but it’s sacred all the same, the first time either of them has ever given in to the cravings of their own bodies for another.

It might be a few seconds later, or maybe a whole hour, when Penn pulls back. She blinks hazy eyes at Frankie as her nostrils scrunch against a sniffle, her breath whistling through the congestion blocking her sinuses. Her chest hitches up with a soft whine, and just as quickly, she ducks down into a cupped hand.

“Hih’XTSCHHihh! Hihhh … hih’XKTSCHhuehh!”

Frankie reaches for her arm. “Bless you.”

“Sorry,” Penn murmurs, her voice ragged and breathless behind her palm. She sniffles, her hand held firmly in place for a moment, as if she’s waiting to see if her nose is done for now. A giggle, soft and shy, rasps over her throat. “Ndot to ruin the mbood, but I can’t breathe.”

Frankie winces and reaches in her pocket. She pulls the last clean tissue out and slips it into Penn’s hand. “We could go inside now, if you want.”

“Soon.” Penn scoots back from Frankie, just enough to get some space to tent the tissue over her nose and blow with an utterly clogged sound. A cough bursts from her throat, sharp and barky.

Frankie rubs a hand over her shoulder. “Penn …”

Penn chokes through the cough but waves her off. “I probise I’b fine.” She mops at her nose and then curls closer to Frankie again. A shiver sparks through her shoulders. “Although I’b … tryi’g ndot to be embarrassed about being a snotty, gross mbess during our first kiss.”

“Second kiss.” Frankie nestles in closer, letting her forehead press against Penn’s. A soft flush tingles across her skin. “Although I’d prefer to pretend this was our first.”

Penn sniffles against her knuckle. “How come?”

“Because I acted like an idiot when you kissed me.” Frankie sniffles into the growing dimness. “It all went wrong for no good reason, and I just — I don’t want to have to remember that.”

Penn hums to herself, then coughs again, more quietly this time. She rolls onto her back to look up at the darkening sky. A tired smile tugs at the corner of her mouth as she slips her hand into Frankie’s.

“I do,” she murmurs.

“Why?”

“Because it was sweet. You kissed mbe back before you got in your head about it, and it was … it was perfect. And even if it didn’t end the way we wanted it to, it’s still a part of all of this, you kndow? And that’s important, I think.” The purple twilight glitters in her eyes as she peers toward Frankie. “I like you for all of you. Ndot just the ndice, easy parts.”

Frankie bites the inside of her cheek as a blush bubbles up her neck. She hooks her fingers together at her waist. “Well, I get to appreciate this kiss, then.”

“Oh, I appreciated it very mbuch. I just didn’t enjoy the fact that I immediately sneezed at you, and the first words out of mby mbouth were to discuss the fact that I have the grossest cold ever.”

“You’re not gross,” Frankie murmurs. She presses a kiss to the spot between Penn’s eyebrows, then eases back to look at her. “What did you want to say instead?”

“Lots of things.” Penn tucks an arm under her head. “I wanted to keep kissi’g you, and tell you how glad I am we talked today, and just … just how glad I am that we got to mbeet. And that I wouldn’t change any of it.”

Frankie rubs her knuckle against her septum. “None of it?”

“Ndone of it.”

Frankie reaches down to hook her pinky finger around Penn’s. Everything is still a little nebulous, the exact terms of what they are and where this is going undefined. But that’s all right. There’s no longer the anxious rush to figure it out, the urgency to shove it all into a tidy little box with a pretty label. Things are out in the open, old secrets no longer hidden. They can navigate it at their own pace. Find their way together.

“Me neither,” she murmurs.

Penn hums a soft, pleased sound and tucks a kiss against Frankie’s temple. “I’b glad.” She snuggles up close, letting the side of her face press against Frankie’s as they both look up at the sky. The first few stars have begun to peek through the blanket of lavender above. The moon rises amidst it all, a soft half-globe of creamy light hung above them.

As the whir of the crickets drones louder from the grass, a shiver winds its way up Frankie’s spine. She loops an arm over Penn’s stomach and tucks herself in closer. Tonight, they’ll sleep like this, held in one another’s arms. Not so different from before at just a glance, but when you look a little closer, everything is fresh and new. There’s a sweet sacredness to each touch, a new excitement that steals Frankie’s breath and fills her with that wonderful warmth.

It’s all the things she never let herself dare to hope for. All the things that hid in the shadows, tucked in the corners of her mind, pushed out of the way. Things that were only allowed for others, now shared between her and Penn.

Penn’s breath catches in a soft gasp. “Did you see that?” she whispers.

Frankie sniffles, her nose scrunching a little against the cool breeze. “What?”

“A shooti’g star. Just to the right of the mboon.” A giggle thrills through Penn’s voice. “I can’t believe I caught that.”

“I can’t believe I missed it.” Frankie lifts her shoulder to rub at her nose. “You’re supposed to make a wish now, I think.”

“Mbake one for me.” Penn’s pinky tightens around Frankie’s. “All of mbine already came true.”

Frankie clasps her free hand over her face, though a laugh still sneaks out, tickling the nerves along the back of her throat and into her nose. “You’re so corny.”

Penn nuzzles a kiss up against her temple. “I know.”

Frankie lets herself lean into Penn’s touch for a long moment, to bask in the warmth of her closeness, though the itch in her nose flickers sharply. With a soft snag in her breath, she curls to the side, ducking down into her shoulder. “Hih … hih’ikkschhuehh!”

“Bless you!” Penn rubs a soothing hand over her shoulder. “You’re not due for mbore medicine, aren’t you?”

“Ndot yet.” Frankie sniffles with a damp, heavy sound. She rubs the heel of her hand against her eye and tenses against a shiver. “I’ll take mbore before bed, probably, and then … I guess again at four.”

Penn groans into Frankie’s shoulder, her glasses getting smooshed up against her face. “I thingk I mbight actually die on the ride home.”

“You can take medicine and fall asleep on me.” Frankie sniffles again, the edges of her nostrils a little quivery and damp, and smooths her thumb over Penn’s cheek. “And then we should buy Eddie and Clem a congratulations slash thank you gift for putting up with us.”

Penn huffs a laugh that snags with a cough. She draws back to rub at her nose and reposition her glasses. “I’d want to kill us, if I had to be in the car and listen to us all day.”

“Me, too.” Frankie scrubs her sleeve under her nose. “I’ll … give Eddie extra vacation days or something, assuming he doesn’t end up catching this and needing them anyway.” She sniffles, then twists to the side with another sharp, “hih’atschhhuehh!”

“Bless you.” Penn yawns and wraps her arms around herself as a shiver rocks through her shoulders. “I’b getting cold.”

“And I’m out of tissues.” Frankie rubs her nose against her sleeve again with a heavy sniffle. “Should we go inside?”

Penn nods. She presses one last kiss against Frankie’s forehead, then eases back to look at her, the barely-there evening light just bright enough to outline her eyelashes against her face. “I mbeant what I said,” she murmurs. “I’b glad. About everything.”

In the growing darkness, Frankie lets herself smile, wide enough her cheeks ache a little. Her nose nudges Penn’s. “Me, too,” she whispers, her lips brushing Penn’s.

Under the light of the moon, they share one more kiss on the blanket, their breathing a little jagged but their arms warm around each other. And though Frankie’s heart kicks up high in her throat, the weight of Penn’s arm across her chest stills everything inside her, keeps the panic from rising up and crashing over her. Here, it’s safe. Here, it’s okay to be known. To chip away at the walls you’ve built up and give voice to the things you’ve never wanted anyone to see. Because here, she’s seen, and loved — not in spite of who she is, but because of it.

#snzfic #these two are adorable #i love them

13 notes · View notes