Content Warnings:
A (very sleepy) sex scene. Transphobia (discrimination in airport security).
By the time you actually got to your reluctantly complimentary room in the Hilton O'Hare, you were tired enough to make a fairly fundamental order-of-operations error, flopping down onto the bed with your backpack and purse still on, resulting in squishing the latter directly into your stomach with all the extra weight of the former.
"Ow."
"You okay?"
"No," you replied, without bothering to move out of the increasingly uncomfortable position. "I'm just going to sleep like this."
There was a clatter behind you as Amara dropped her laptop bag perhaps slightly too heavily and flopped down beside you with a groan.
"My knees hurt," she muttered against the comforter. "And my neck, I need a lighter laptop."
With some effort between the tangled straps of your luggage, you fished your phone out of your pocket to check the time; it was just a little past seven. Brigid ought to be landing in about an hour, though from your experience thus far, you wouldn't be surprised if the airplane decided to head back halfway. You let the phone slip from your hand and began to try and worm your way out of your bags, which mostly resulted in your folding your left hand painfully against your shoulder as you tried to slip it out from between two pinching straps.
"What are you doing?" Amara muttered.
"I dunno. Tired." You finally slipped your hand out and managed to shrug the tangled mess off and onto the floor; the carpet did little to muffle the impact of your purse. You crashed back against the comforter and rolled over; Amara was still face down, looking utterly defeated. "You okay, babe?"
"No. Aforementioned knees and neck… and everything else," she repeated, somewhat muffled by the mattress. "I think I'm going to die."
"This is what I get for dating older women," you sighed, stifling a yawn.
"I'm not that much, I… gah," she protested weakly. "Okay, yeah, I'm ancient."
"...okay,
no, babe, you're twenty-seven," you corrected. She nodded against the mattress.
"Relative to my demographic," she added casually.
"... Jesus that's dark," you said, genuinely in awe. You crawled over, placing a hand on her shoulder to get her to turn her head so you could dart in for a kiss. "Massage before we sleep in and miss our flight?"
"With your tiny bony little knife hands?" she said. You pouted.
"They're soft and delicate and very nice," you insisted.
"They are prehensile scalpels," she corrected, but didn't protest when you pulled down the back of her collar and gently rubbed slow circles with your thumbs against the base of her neck. She sighed in blessed relief, seeming to sink against the comforter as you worked.
"L-left side especially, stupid laptop bag…" she muttered. "I hope Brigid's okay."
"Yeah… this sucks. I think flying might have been a mistake. Maybe we angered the gods," you speculated, tugging on her collar. It wasn't moving. "Hmm. Lose the shirt."
"... why do I suspect an ulterior motive to this massage?" Amara teased sleepily, propping herself up to undo her buttons.
"What? Haha, I would never, this is strictly practical," you lied, admiring the expanse of smooth, dark skin as she slipped off her shirt. You ran a hand down her spine, catching a moment on the strap of her bra, your breath hitching. "R-right, where were we?"
"
Hmmm," Amara noted. Your face went hot.
"Look! We… it's… I…" You stopped, crossing your arms in frustration. "It's been a long week! We did a very respectful of our friend while sharing her tiny bed and that was very cool of us but I am
losing my mind."
"And here I thought you were tired?" Just the mention of the word made you yawn.
"Ye-
awww-es but, well… Some things are more important than sleep!" you declared, betraying everything you'd ever stood for. "I think I might actually die. I'm barely hanging on."
"Uh-huh." She rolled over to look at you, a glint in her eye, a smirk creeping onto her lips, probably other facial expressions but the strap of her bra had slipped down her arm and your awareness outside of that fact was rapidly diminishing.
"The doctors are looking at my chart and they keep shaking their heads sadly," you confirmed. "They've never seen a case this bad. It's a wonder I'm still alive."
"A whole week, wow."
"I
know. I'm basically a medical miracle," you concluded. Her poker face held for a few seconds before her lips pulled into an involuntary smile. Direct hit! Quick, while she's off balance! You pressed forward to catch her lips with yours, climbing atop her as she reclined back into the bed to free her hands. It wasn't your best work makeout-wise, tired and sluggish and kinda awkwardly sliding off-target to plant kisses along her jaw, but close enough.
"You… you dummy," Amara sighed into your ear. You sat back on her legs and pulled up your shirt, tossing it gracefully directly onto the tall, top-heavy lamp by the bed. You both watched trepidatiously for several seconds before realizing it was fixed to the bedside table and wasn't going to fall.
"Whoops," you said, looking back to meet her eyes, and it just hit, like it always did. She was looking at you like you were the only thing in the entire world that mattered, like nothing else existed. With
awe. When you saw yourself through her eyes, there were none of the imperfections and anxieties you had about yourself, just a grateful disbelief that she got to witness someone so divine.
It concerned you sometimes that Andy would talk about a Goddess, with the upsetting implication it might be you. But here you were with a worshipper, and you had prayers to grant.
You dipped back in to kiss her again, properly this time, basking in the feeling that washed between you as her arms wrapped around you. Amara wasn't a person given much to passion; all the grand romance of Princess Rose was theatre to her, a fact that made the effort she put into it all the sweeter. She loved you so much it was indistinguishable as a feeling, it was the foundation of everything she was. When you were this close her mind was like an open book and every page had your name burnt into it.
Lost in the pleasant intoxication of exhaustion and infatuation, you missed exactly how and when she'd turned the tables on you, but suddenly you were under her and she was trailing kisses down your chest. Your bra was off and you had no memory of her removing it; it was more of her infuriating not-magic, it had to be. You fumbled inexpertly with your hands behind her back in turn as she made the job as difficult as possible, grinning with triumph as you finally freed the hooks.
"Gosh those are nice," you mumbled as you pulled away her bra, throwing it more carefully into the corner of the room well away from any of the lamps.
"You say that
every time."
"Cuz it's
true…" you retorted happily. You mostly got in the habit because she'd really needed a lot of reassurance for a while that she was, in fact, crazy ridiculously hot, but you weren't going to stop just because she'd finally believed you. Not that she wasn't before, but…
She unbuttoned your jeans and peeled them off, her hand pressing against you through your panties before, at your incoherently muttered insistence, her fingers slipped past the fabric and inside. Your mouth opened with a little involuntary moan and she caught it with a kiss, her other hand tightening in your hair as she slowly curled her fingers exactly how you liked.
There was something funny you wanted to say, your brain not shutting up even now, but about the most you could manage was to throw your arms around her neck and hold on. It was infuriating how good she was at this, it wasn't
fair somehow. The glimpse you got into her thoughts as your own slipped into beautiful incoherence was all exacting angles and rhythm and listening close to your reaction, and God it was hot knowing she knew you so well she had a
procedure.
Just as you yourself were reaching the conclusion you needed more, needed
her, just before you could figure out how to articulate the need, her fingers withdrew, leaving you to squirm against the mattress as she shed the rest of her clothes. You closed your eyes to bask in the pleasant anticipation, and just about had the presence of mind to slip off your undies before the movement and sound and lovely heat signaled her return.
"Babe, where'd you drop your purse?" she whispered seductively into your ear
"Guwhaaa?" you replied eloquently, lust dripping from every syllable.
"Condom. We have enough problems right now," she reminded you. After banishing an
extremely stupid intrusive thought (no, brain, HRT is not "basically birth control"), you mustered up enough patience to sit up and lean over the edge of the bed to look, eventually shifting so far she had to hold on to you so you wouldn't fall.
"… yeah, good think. As cute as Aurora was, I don't think we're ready for a reunion just yet," you muttered, searching through the clothes and bags that had piled up shockingly quickly. Somehow, your purse had come to rest under the bed, visible only by the strap still looped into your backpack. You fought a brief and losing battle to liberate it, gave up, and fished around inside while hanging upside down.
You tapped her leg and she pulled you back up like she was retrieving a diver in an old timey diving suit, and you fell back against her chest, grinning wildly. Amara's arms wrapped around you and pulled you against her, and you yawned again as the sheer cozy miracle of being little spoon drowned out all else.
"I'm so stupid tired," you said, nestling your head against the pillow. Sleepy had suddenly and unexpectedly overtaken horny in the brief lull, and it was hard to fight it. "Bleeeh. Sorry…"
There was a wave of exhausted relief from behind you as Amara's embrace tightened.
"Oh thank God, I was worried I'd end up falling asleep midway through," Amara exclaimed, breaking into a yawn of her own. "Eurgh… I love you a lot, but holy shit I'm so
tired. Hit the lights and set an alarm?"
"Hey Siri," you called. No answer. You sat up a little. "
Hey, Siri."
There was a little electronic noise of acknowledgement from the floor somewhere.
"Set an alarm for 5 am," you instructed, reaching over to the light switch on the bedside table.
"
Okay, I've set your-"
"4:30," Amara whispered as you settled back against her.
"… yeah, good idea, given our luck," you muttered. She shook her head behind you, the curls of her hair playing across your neck.
"No, dummy. We'll need the extra time. I'm not done with you," she said softly, kissing the back of your head.
"… Hey Siri. 4:15," your corrected. "Actually, make it 4. 4 AM. At least."
"…
I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand. Could you repeat that?"
🦋
It was somewhat moot. You didn't sleep that well, the stress of travel and worry for your friend kept you both up. Amara was restless despite her exhaustion, getting up and pacing the room before crashing back down, her dream stop-start snippets that barely got through the first act. You got up to plug in your phones, to brush your teeth, to drag her back to bed, and what sleep you got was just blurry lost time, holes in the listless dark.
Sometime around one in the morning, as she sat back on the bed for the fourth time and glanced at her phone, you pushed yourself upright and wrapped your arms around her back, whispering to her to lie back. It was surreal, almost a dream in the shadowed room, heat and sweat and blind touch, her hands firm on your hips, the only thing keeping you balanced in the chaotic, half-real swirl of fatigue, desire, and frustration. It didn't have the romance she longed for or the excitement that drove you, but you both needed it anyway, some kind of punctuation to the interminable hours.
The haze of the aftermath bought you both three hours sleep, lying atop her in the still heat of the dark hotel room. You curled around her as closely as you could as you drifted off, greedy for every bit of the heat that radiated off her skin.
It still felt like your alarm went off immediately, the time just gone in a blink. It was still dark outside. You awoke with a start, shaking her into awareness with it, and staggered to the bathroom with unsteady legs. The hotel shower coinflip landed on
cold and you were, at least, somewhat awake when you reemerged with a warning.
"Fuck!"
She did not heed the warning.
The security line at O'Hare, even in the early morning hours, was like nothing you'd ever seen before. Heathrow had been busy, but it hadn't been
stressful, it felt like everything was moving forward with a sense of purpose. O'Hare funneled everyone into a security room dead in the middle of the various airline desks, and there must have simply been a mismatch between expectations on a sleepy Sunday morning and the number of people like you who simply had somewhere to be, because only the middle two security lines were open.
You waited almost forty-five minutes in the zig-zagging line leading up to it, still half-asleep, scrolling Instagram and resisting the urge to text Kimiyo at what would be 3 in the morning on the West Coast. Amara was tense, you could feel it in her arm as you looped yours around and leaned against her; this was the part where you'd push yourself up on your tiptoes and give her a little kiss to make her feel better, but unfortunately that would just about get you in kissing range of her collarbone if you were lucky. Stupid incredibly hot tall people turning spontaneous smooches into a co-op game.
You were considering showing her the latest unbelievably adorable picture of Marutaro as a substitute when Skype pinged you with a notification, from
Riley. Riley logged on to Skype exactly once a week for the team call, what the hell was she doing sending you a message this early?
"I just saw the post, what's going on?"
Your heart sank.
"what pose"
"post"
"autocorrect"
A link to a Facebook post booped onto the screen, from Kimiyo. You tapped it to see a picture of the Kimiyo signature selfie (looking at the camera with violent intent) on the couch in the apartment next to an exhausted Brigid, whose raw red eyes and thousand-yard stare did not say good things. The caption was simply "
rescued bestie from the airport. lawsuits pending. Tagged in Photo
: Kimiyo Okamoto, Brigid Aisling O'Connell
"
You let out a breath, and were about to write a reply when Amara nudged your arm.
"Line's moving."
You managed
g2g srry and stuffed your phone in your purse before stepping up to the line after her, showing your boarding pass to the guy and beginning the ritual removal of shoes, belt, and necklace. You placed the golden butterfly in the center of the tray, its absence stark, and lined up for the scanner just as Amara took a deep breath and stepped in. Her anxiety was radiating off her so palpably that while you couldn't quite hear her thoughts, you knew exactly what was going to happen a moment before it did.
"Feet a bit farther apart, miss. Raise your hands."
The booth whirred and the scanning arm whipped around as Amara tried to keep her breathing steady.
"I know the drill," she muttered pre-emptively, lowering her hands. "Can you at least not do it in front of every-"
"Step this way, sir."
"Yeah. Okay."
You stepped into the machine after her, having to look away to face the scanner thing, an awful, horrid weight on your chest that was one part your own and two parts hers. Your eyes followed the little grey tray with your purse and shoes and the golden butterfly as it rolled through the scanning line, shifting in discomfort from the phantom sensation of hands and the twin, very different revulsions felt by her and the man patting her down.
"You're good, come on through," the blue-uniformed officer operating the scanner said. You glanced at the screen as you stepped out and the man behind you stepped in, just in time to see the officer's eyes flick up, make a judgement, and mash their thumb on the
male option on the screen. He glanced toward you, not even looking at the scanner and the little red circles over the next passenger.
"Keep it moving, miss."
You picked your butterfly necklace back up out of the tray, your trembling fingers tightening around the gold and amber, retrieved your bags and shoes and purse, and sat quietly at the bench to wait. Amara came by, her shoes in her hands and bags slung over her shoulders, and sat heavily next to you.
"... so good news. Belt line pat down," she said wearily.
"How's that good?" you asked. She forced a smile on her face, but it was the fakest thing you've ever seen.
"Means I pass. Where the fuck's our gate?"
There was another delay, but it was only about fifteen minutes. Your group was called and the person at the desk tried to say something about changes in seating arrangement, and Amara just shrugged and nodded before you intervened and put your foot down.
You shuffled aboard and took your seats; you let Amara have the window seat despite what it said on the tickets, and you held her hand from takeoff to landing. She said maybe three words the whole trip, just staring out the window as the country crawled by, as the endless fields of the midwest became the deep green of forests and mountains, then desert, then home. You tried to use the in-flight entertainment app to watch things on your phone, but you couldn't get it to work.
You deplaned and walked through the airport, heading out of the terminal. There was a hall filled with images from the city's history, like a little loading screen for San Francisco, and you paused again in front of the last image, an artist's impression of you bracing your shield, framed against the silhouette of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Amara stopped with you as you shuffled off to the side of the hall so people could pass by, holding your hand as you studied it. You read the little blurb about the Battle of SF and the inexplicable miracle and how proud the city was of its mysterious protectors, about destruction and rebuilding, the word
stronger than ever playing strangely in your mind. You didn't feel stronger. You felt like the little girl in the painting, something looming over her just out of sight.
Amara glanced down at you, and bumped you playfully with an elbow.
"Think if you save the world a second time, you get, like, frequent flyer miles?" she asked. You burst into an undignified snort of laughter.
"I hope not, that feels like a
threat right now."
You had to take a taxi home, owing to Kimiyo not having her licence and the thought of public transit in your current state unthinkable, the cost sliding out of your brain into the giant vague abstract pile of mounting debt. Kimiyo met you at the door, looking positively angelic in your haze of exhaustion, and the next thing you remembered was the blessed relief of your pillow and Kimiyo promising to wake you in a few hours so you didn't get too turned around.
