#this fic came to me soooooooo easily it was v fun for me to write

[veeples]

ockiss24 - chigisa

Another fic for @ockissweek! This time with two of my fave girls :-). title: i blinked (and suddenly i had a valentine) pairing: charlie rosewall/nagisa yogo (@lilas) rating: gen word count: ~1.6k [ao3 link!]

Charlie can admit, in the privacy of her heart, that she doesn’t know what the fuck to do about Valentine’s day.

Look, it’s never been a date that’s called for any special attention. She is a career woman first, a socially repugnant bitch second, and a total ignoramus with love last. Her experience with the holiday wasn’t one of a romantic nature. Each year, she gave her siblings each a box of nice chocolates and spent her evening in the company of whatever shitty romantic comedy she could find. For years, that was her routine. And she was quite happy for it, thank you.

That is, until she met Nagisa.

They’d met at an art gallery’s opening weekend and had bonded over some rather shoddy looking art that came off as unintentionally erotic, and not in any good way. Then they’d kept running into each other in the artist circles they both frequented but weren’t true participants in. Friendship never came naturally to Charlie, but theirs had been one she kept gravitating towards.

Friendship morphed slowly into attraction, and attraction developed into a baby crush, gasping and new but persistent. Anyone with eyes would have liked Nagisa with her generous curves and wicked smile like she always knew something you didn’t. Or, lacking that, ears to hear her tinkling laugh and lilting, light voice that bellied her alarmingly sharp wit. Nagisa is the kind of woman that’ll have Charlie counting her lucky stars that Nagisa ended up liking her back.

(That’s still something Charlie puzzles over. See: socially repugnant bitch.)

Well, that’s all great and good. She got the girl. Now she’s faced with the problem of how to keep the girl. Her humiliating inexperience with dating and woeful lack of knowledge is a familiar and irritating hindrance. What does she do? They hadn’t been together that long – six months – so what would be the most appropriate Valentine’s date for them? 

Dinner was a sort of option, albeit a dull one. Most nice places were fully booked for the night as well, so Charlie would be left with lower level scraps. She’d rather not spend the night fighting for a dingy little table at the Chilis, thanks. Scratch that.

Movies were also common enough. That might be fine if Charlie or Nagisa actually had any interest in the current showings. When Charlie tested those waters, she found the interest from her girlfriend tepid, at best.

(“Oh, February showings are almost as bad as January ones, Charlie. Especially this early into the month.” Nagisa had said after one brief, unimpressed glance at the listings. “There is a fun little romcom I think you’ll enjoy coming out at the end of the month, how’s that?”)

So that was also off the table.

Simple gifts were also aggravatingly difficult to navigate. Everything seemed too… tacky. Overwrought. Who needed a giant stuffed teddy bear crowding their space? No one. Or a cheap little mug filled with cheaper chocolate? Gross. Jewelry and lingerie were too advanced and too personal – Charlie blushed awfully red just thinking about choosing a frilly thing for Nagisa to wear – and Charlie doesn’t want to look, gods, desperate . 

She is, of course. She is terribly desperate to prove to Nagisa that she is a worthwhile girlfriend worth the months Nagisa spent pining for her, flirting with her, only to be met with the frustration of Charlie’s absolute ignorance to all of it. 

She just didn’t want it to be so painfully obvious.

Ah, fuck.

Love is really fucking hard.

*

Valentine’s day descends faster than she would like and the only thing Charlie secures is a decent bouquet of roses and an hour away from work to surprise Nagisa at lunch.

Despite the anxiety that this plan is supremely lame, Charlie did her best to dress herself well enough to impress. She put on the trousers that accentuated the length of her legs, chose a lip color Nagisa had once commented made her look “very yummy”, and spritzed herself with the expensive sandalwood perfume she’d worn for their first date. For a bit of confidence.

She needs every ounce she can manage.

Her hands keep clenching the bouquet in harsh, nervous spasms, which makes the cellophane crinkle noisily as she makes her way to Nagisa’s office. The walk feels a bit like the times she’d been sent to the headmaster’s office in her youth. There’s an overwhelming sense of foreboding, like she knows she’s already fucked this all up and all she’s got to look forward to is a fitting punishment for being a lackluster girlfriend.

Oh gods. Oh gods.

She can’t fucking do this.

There’s no time to formulate a last minute escape plan because Nagisa spots her through the window. Her round face instantly brightens with joy, eyes crinkling and mouth spreading into a wide grin. As always, that sends Charlie’s heart into a helpless, wild flutter. No one’s ever looked at her with such excitement like Nagisa has. No one’s ever looked at her like her being there has made their day better.

Nagisa is already standing up from her chair when Charlie steps inside her cramped little office. She holds out the bouquet in front of her like a shield and clears her throat discreetly.

“I see you’re– Here.” Fuck, bad start. Nagisa’s smile only grows in amusement, but she is thankfully patient with her floundering. “I mean, ah, I’ve brought you flowers. As you can see them.”

“I do, and they’re so very lovely,” Nagisa coos and steps out from behind her desk. “And whatever are they for, Charlie?”

Ah, she’s not playing nice then. Sometimes Nagisa will pity her and her apparent fondness for tripping over herself from her own emotional stupidity.

Not now, she supposes.

“For– you know, Valentine’s day. I wanted to take you out to lunch.” Charlie says, taking a small step forward and is disappointed when Nagisa takes the flowers from her hands, because it means now her hands have nothing to do. They clench spasmodically at her sides. “I have a table reserved for us at that restaurant that you like around the corner. The Thai place? It’s for a whole hour, and I’ve turned my phone off so there’s no chance someone will bother me.”

Nagisa hums in interest as she closes the space between them, but makes no effort in stopping Charlie’s sputtering over explanation. Nagisa’s hands settle on Charlie’s shoulders, stroking the silky fabric idly, her dark and lovely eyes sparkling and clear with her affection. This has the effect of making her brain flare up like an overheated filament before dying.

“A whole hour? Will you survive without checking your phone every ten seconds?” Nagisa says in that familiar teasing tone that Charlie hates to say she loves since she’s usually at the end of it.

“Yes,” Charlie says, a little too fast. Nagisa’s eyebrows quirk in mute disbelief. “Yes, of course! I won’t even have it on the table.” When Nagisa only stares at her, Charlie fumbles, panicked. “Do you not want to do lunch? We don’t have to. We can– I can find something, give me a second–”

Finally, feeling merciful, Nagisa cuts her off by pressing a chaste kiss to her mouth.

“Love, aren’t you the cutest? Do I make you so nervous?”

Heat flares up with the strength of an inferno up her neck. Charlie blushes viciously and gapes like an idiot. “I– Perhaps! Is it so bad I want to impress you? This is our first Valentine’s. Of many, I hope.”

“Oh, how many?”

Kill her.

“Ah– As many as you want to give me. You can have all of mine.”

Killing her would be a kindness.

“How romantic! Charlie, you’ll have me blushing with declarations like that.”

Nagisa is certainly not blushing. She does look as pleased as the cat who's got the canary.

“Yes, well, maybe I’ll come up with more life altering declarations at the restaurant. We should really go, I don’t want to waste our lunch hour,” Charlie says in an obvious bid for retreat from saying all of that . “So shall we?”

Nagisa laughs and kisses her again. This time, she lingers. Her hand moves from Charlie’s shoulder to cup her jaw. She is so warm pressed up against Charlie’s front, all soft curves and softer touches and smelling sweetly of roses. Charlie relaxes quickly into the kiss, tension and anxiety rolling off her, her heart slowing from its rabbit-fast pounding, and curls her hand around one full hip.

Charlie likes her so much. Even when Nagisa loves nothing more than to delight in teasing her painful awkwardness, Charlie feels it is from a place of pure fondness. Becoming such a damn fool wasn’t something she envisioned, but it’s a fine exchange to stay in Nagisa’s company.

“Nagisa,” Charlie breaks away from the kiss with a contented smile. “Lunch?”

“Mmm. I guess.” Nagisa pokes out her lip in a dramatic pout. Charlie notes, with a hot curl of satisfaction, that her plum lipstick has smudged.  “Yes, yes, let’s go, I think that curry I like will be perfect for today.”

They leave the office together, huddled close against the biting February wind. Charlie’s hand pressed against Nagisa’s back, Nagisa’s cheek laid delicately against her arm. They spend the hour in the cozy heat of the restaurant, laughing and holding hands across the table. Not once does Charlie think of her phone tucked away in her purse or the work she’ll have waiting for her.

As far as a proper first Valentine’s day goes, Charlie couldn’t ask for any better. Holding Nagisa, being kissed by Nagisa – this is already more than she’s ever dared to hope for herself.

#ockiss24 #oc kiss week #veep writing #oc: charlie rosewall #nagisa yogo #ship: chigisa #this fic came to me soooooooo easily it was v fun for me to write