#FSFFWeek20DaySix

[coldflasher]

Part of Femslash Week, organised by @flarrowverse-shipyard​ :D Femslash Week Day 6 - Snowed In

Pairing: Caitlin Snow/Iris West

Rating: Teen (mentions of sex)

TW: mentions of sex 

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23031847

Safe As Houses by coldflasher (capriciouslouis on ao3)

“I just can’t understand where this blizzard is coming from,” Iris says, staring out of the window in disbelief.

“Yeah,” Caitlin says guiltily. “Me neither.”

Iris and Caitlin are investigating an abandoned cabin in the woods when a mysterious snow-storm strikes out of nowhere. It’s pretty cold inside the cabin, but luckily for them, there are a lot of ways to keep each other warm.

“I just can’t understand where this blizzard is coming from,” Iris says, staring out of the window in disbelief.

“Yeah,” Caitlin says guiltily. “Me neither.”

When they arrived at the cabin in the middle of the woods, it was a cheerful spring day and sun was streaming between the leaves of the trees overhead, gold spotlights dappling the moss. Just a few hours later, the snow is piling up thickly on the windowsill outside and the glass in the windows shimmer with frost. The front door is stuck shut as if glued. Iris shakes her head at the snow piling up outside while Caitlin looks at the bluish tips of her fingers and flexes her hands to shake off the last remnants of the icy fog that swirls and clings to her like an aura.

The cabin is part of the investigation they’re conducting into a series of mysterious meta attacks that S.T.A.R Labs has been looking into, and Iris has been working on an article to try and set the city’s minds at ease. Caitlin, who’s been acting as her medical consultant and making sure Iris keeps the science straight, agreed to tag along to check out the scene of the crime – not that there’s any evidence left now, everything cleared away, including the markers that stood on every surface like the flags Caitlin used to stick in sandcastles on the beach when she was a kid. It was supposed to be a short trip, but with the snow outside showing no sign of letting up, it looks like they’re in it for the long haul.

“Super weird,” Iris says, shaking her head and letting the curtain fall back into place. “I don’t suppose you can do anything about this, can you?”

Caitlin shakes her head. “Frost and I create snow and ice. We can’t get rid of it.”

“Figures. Oh well. If we’re stuck here, we might as well get settled in.” She unzips her laptop bag and slides her computer out, getting settled on the sofa. “You don’t mind if I get some work done, do you? Maybe being trapped here will get me in the right mindset.”

“Sure, knock yourself out,” says Caitlin. “Uh. I’m just going to…” She gestures vaguely. “Make use of the facilities.”

“Okay,” Iris says absently, already typing.

Caitlin walks into the cramped bathroom, the bathtub so close to the toilet she could sit on it and dangle her feet into the tub – not that she would. She wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone had been killed in there, and there’s a reddish stain around the rim that someone has tried and failed to scrub away. It could be rust or could be blood, but either way she doesn’t trust it. Looking at herself in the rust-flecked mirror, she hisses, “Frost. Frost!”

What?

Caitlin glares at herself in the mirror. “You know what. Why’d you snow us in?”

Chill out, says Frost. There’s no way that pun was unintentional; Caitlin fumes harder. I’m doing you a favour. This crush of yours is getting super old; it’s time to do something about it.

“You created a blizzard just to get me to admit that I have a crush on Iris?”

Clearly it’s working, Frost points out. Now you just need to tell her that.

“You couldn’t have just given me a pep talk?”

Like you’d have listened. Now you have no choice. Besides, it’s romantic – like one of those tedious romance novels you love so much.

“You call this romantic?” hisses Caitlin. “It’s a crime scene.”

A knock on the door makes her jump. “Cait? Everything okay?”

“I’m okay,” she calls, and watches the shadows of Iris’ feet shifting through the crack under the door before she walks away.

As soon as she’s gone, Caitlin’s head snaps up and she glares back into the mirror, clutching the sink. “Don’t you dare leave me to deal with this, you asshole. Frost? Frost!”

Her head stays silent. Frost has abandoned her, leaving nothing but a sense of unbearable smugness in her wake.

Closing her eyes, Caitlin resists the urge to throttle her own reflection and settles for flipping herself the bird. Then she flops onto the toilet and buries her face in her hands.

Being alone with Iris was already starting to make her nervous, and now they’re trapped in close proximity for god knows how long. But the longer she hides in here the weirder things will get when she finally emerges. Taking a deep breath, she smooths the front of her blouse and makes eye contact with herself in the mirror.

“You got this,” she says.

Iris is on the couch with her laptop when Caitlin comes back into the living room. “You good?” she asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine. There was a spider,” Caitlin lies, “so…” She gestures vaguely at the bathroom.

“You want me to handle it?” offers Iris.

The thought of Iris heroically taking on a spider for her makes Caitlin fuzzy inside, especially since she knows from past experience that Iris isn’t too fond of them. “I got it. Thanks, though.”

She goes to join Iris on the couch, and notices that Iris still has her jacket on and has zipped it all the way up to the throat. She keeps rubbing her hands together in between sentences.

“Are you okay?”

“It’s pretty cold in here. No central heating, I guess.”

Caitlin hadn’t noticed. Then again, she wouldn’t. Like Elsa, the cold doesn’t bother her much.

“There’s a fireplace,” she suggests.

“I don’t know how to start a fire,” Iris admits.

Caitlin shrugs. “We’re smart,” she says. “We’ll figure it out.”

Being busy helps. It keeps her from becoming too awkward and stumbling over her words. She finds a matchbook in one of the kitchen drawers, which makes things easier. Iris rips a bunch of pages out of the back of her notebook, stuffing the grate full of scrunched up paper. When they light it, it’s with bated breath – but the fire catches, and within a few minutes the room is flickering with a cheery light that glows like the sunset outside and fills the room with a pleasant warmth.

“Better?” Caitlin asks.

“Much,” Iris says, and goes back to work.

They both get settled on the couch. Caitlin has started carrying books in her purse, and she pulls out an old favourite, a Rebecca Silver romance novel about an alien warrior woman and her space pirate conquest. It’s the definition of a guilty pleasure read, and she all but folds the book in half making sure Iris can’t see the cover – but her attention keeps wandering anyway. She likes watching Iris’ fingers fly across the keyboard, teeth sinking into her lower lip as she concentrates. Every now and then she’ll pause and frown at the screen for a while, thinking, and when the right word comes to her she’ll nod her head with satisfaction as she continues. Aside from occasional interjections of “hey, what’s another word for ‘proponent?’” or “does this sentence make sense to you?” and the crackling of the fire, they’re quiet. It’s soothing.

“Crap,” Iris says eventually. “My laptop’s almost dead.”

Caitlin looks up. The snow has stopped falling, and outside the night sky is almost black with the shadows of the conifers silhouetted against it, flat as paper cut-outs.

Iris double-saves before shutting down the laptop. As she leans forward to add a few more pieces of paper to the fire, she accidentally knocks Caitlin’s book onto the floor.

“Crap, sorry.” She reaches for it.

“No, wait –”

Caitlin tries to intercept, but she’s too late. Iris is already picking up the book, and as Caitlin’s ears grow hot, she wishes – not for the first time – that the covers of Rebecca Silver’s books were a little more subtle. It’s hard to deny the subject matter of a romance novel that has an underwear-clad, three-boobed alien lady straddling a buccaneer on the front. She really needs to invest in an e-reader.

“Is this Rebecca Silver?” Iris says.

“Yeah, but it’s – I mean, she’s –”

“I love her,” Iris says, flipping the pages enthusiastically. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, they’re super gratuitous and a little heavy on the smut, but they’re so fun. I really love the heist scenes; the woman has a mind like a supervillain. So many details!”

Caitlin blinks. She’d been expecting a similar reaction she’d got from Cisco, who had made fun of her mercilessly when he found one of Rebecca’s novels in her purse but later been caught reading one under the desk in the cortex. Instead, Iris is checking the blurb.

“I haven’t read this one.”

“It’s one of her first,” Caitlin says, finding her voice at last. “The prose is a little rougher, but the plot is awesome. She gets a little more formulaic in her more recent novels; I guess it’s hard to keep up with such a huge demand from her readership.” After a moment’s hesitation, she says, “You want to read it?”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll totally borrow it after you’re done with it.”

“Or we could read it together. It’ll give us something to do.” Her brain catches up to her a second later and her thoughts all pile up like a bunch of kids all landing on top of one another at the bottom of a slide. “I mean, maybe not the sexy parts.”

“I like the sexy parts,” Iris says, but she’s grinning.

“Me too,” admits Caitlin, “but they’re a little graphic.”

“We’ll skip the sex scenes, then. Not sure how much of the book will be left, but we’ll figure it out.”

Iris is a good reader. She’s not embarrassed to do the voices and her own voice has a pleasant cadence to it, smooth and relaxing. With that and the fire crackling, Caitlin can’t remember when she was last so relaxed. She closes her eyes for a second, enjoying the warmth on her face and letting Iris’ voice fade into the background…

When she wakes, someone is stroking her hair.

She’s too sleepy to acknowledge it at first. With a happy mumble, she snuggles down and rubs her cheek against the soft fabric she’s resting on, enjoying the sensation of fingers carding gently through her curls, lingering at the nape of her neck. Over and over, like she’s a cat. It feels nice, and she’s about to let herself drift off again when suddenly it hits her.

She sits bolt upright, alarmed, and there’s a slithering sound as Iris’ jacket – which had been draped over her like a blanket – falls to the floor. The fire has died down to almost nothing. Caitlin looks at Iris, who’s startled and has pulled her hand back like Caitlin burned her.

That’s when she realises she fell asleep with her head in Iris’ lap.

“I’m sorry,” Iris says, “did I wake you?”

“No, I –” She’s mortified. How long has she been napping with her cheek resting on Iris’ thigh like that? “How long have I been asleep?”

“Not long. Just a couple of hours.”

“Oh my God, I’m sorry –”

“Don’t worry about it –”

“I can’t believe I did that –”

“It’s fine, really –”

“I wasn’t even that tired, I closed my eyes for just a second and then I woke up and I was –”

Iris silences her with a kiss.

Everything stops. The world. Her heart. The flurry of panicked, anxious thoughts flying around her brain like sharp-edged snowflakes, creating a blizzard she can’t seem to see past. All of that fades away and there’s only Iris, who reaches up to caress Caitlin’s cheek as she kisses her, tucking her hair behind her ear and stroking the red mark on her face where she’d slept strangely, then sliding her fingers into Caitlin’s hair until her hand rests on the back of Caitlin’s neck, a reassuring weight.

They part, and for a moment Iris’ forehead rests against hers in a gesture almost more intimate than the kiss before she pulls away.

“Oh,” says Caitlin, startled.

“Oh,” Iris says, smiling.

For a moment Caitlin sits there, dazed. Iris reaches out to tuck her hair behind her ear.

“You with me? Seemed like you were freaking out on me for a second there.”

“Maybe a little.” She hesitates. “Um. Do you kiss every person that starts freaking out on you?”

The smile becomes an impish grin. “Only the ones I really like.”

Another oh, but this one inside. The sensation of things clicking into place, the realisation that this isn’t as one-sided as she’d thought. Things are beginning to make a lot more sense, now. The fact she’d been invited along as a medical consultant but hadn’t been asked a single question about biology, for example… and the way Iris had kept glancing at her as she read aloud from the book. The hand in her hair when she’d thought Caitlin wasn’t awake to see it.

She feels a rush of warmth that was nothing to do with the fire.

“Well, it worked,” Caitlin says. Then, unable to believe her own daring, “Maybe you should do it again.”

“Yeah?” asks Iris, her smile growing.

“I mean, at this point it’s preventative,” says Caitlin. “Which is better than a cure.”

“Is that your professional opinion, Doctor Snow?”

“Absolutely. Super professional.”

“Well,” says Iris. “If it’s what the doctor ordered…”

She pulls Caitlin close to her and they collapse into one another like a snowdrift, sinking into the sofa. For once, Caitlin’s mind is silent. There are no thoughts to torment her, no worries or fears. Just Iris, her reverent touch and her gentle mouth. The fire in the grate is almost extinguished, but there are better ways to keep warm.

Outside, the snow is beginning to thaw.

#FSFFWeek20 #FSFFWeek20DaySix #day 6 #snowwest