Linger [Finished]

[carcinoGeneticist]

Donnie was staring at her outstretched hand, and Sadie found she was unable to watch to see what the Wolverine would do. The seconds were counted in her mind, slowly passing by, and Sadie closed her eyes. Ten seconds. That would be long enough to wait for Donnie to somehow react, wouldn't it? After that she could bring her hand back and sit on it, just to keep it from acting with such trechery again. She was just about to do just that when there was a touch on her skin and she froze.

It wasn't the entanglement of lover's fingers, nor was it the simple compassionate touch of friends, but it was somewhere in-between. Sadie could handle it, until Donnie's thumb began to run over the back of her hand, across her skin. The woman's breath caught in her throat for a moment and she took a deep breath, her head spinning.

Oh. Oh. Donnie was speaking.

Sadie felt silly for a moment, but the other woman's fingers were still moving and that was a damn good distraction. "Yeah, you're right there,[/b]" Sadie agreed. She was right there, and in some ways, that was an improvement. "But I still miss you in the sense that... Oh, Suits, I miss... you.[/b]" she swallowed, hard. It wasn't the worst thing she'd said tonight, was it?

Then, of course, Donnie had to blow her out of the water. Without a single word leaving her mouth Sadie's hand twisted beneath Donnie's, palm touching palm, and she laced her slender fingers through the wolverine's. The lack of focus wasn't even noticed, forgotten in favor of the thing that Donnie had said, the words that she'd so often felt herself. "Me, too,[/b]" she gulped, fighting back emotion. Damnit all. She wanted Donnie in her life again, but even through the haze of alcohol.... She knew.

It just wouldn't work. There was something missing from them, something that couldn't be manufactured if it didn't exist in the first place.

The real question was if she could let her forget that fact. Just for now.

"It was good,[/b]" she echoed, a sadness in her eyes, swallowing again. "And whatever I said at the end... I didn't mean it, Donnie, I really didn't. I was happy with you. I don't regret meeting you, and I don't regret making the time to be the somebody who was there when you came home. And... and I do love you.[/b]" she froze. No, no no no. Wrong tense, Sadie, stupid woman! "Did.[/b]"

Her mind alerted her to the lie.

[The Jenn]

This was shaky ground. Donnie could practically feel the world wobbling underneath them, or maybe that was just the bench, or her head. She wasn't sure. That hand, though. The hand wasn't moving. It was solid. Her fingers entwined with Sadie's, warm and solid and real. As real as anything else. Her throat shouldn't feel so dry.

"Yeah. I really... really miss you too, you bitch. Damn. Makes me wonder how it turned so bad in the first place." Slowly she brought their hands to her mouth, lips resting against the mess of fingers, just holding them there and breathing. Eventually the hold turned into a tiny kiss and yellow eyes flicked up from their unfocused, faraway look to watch the Yarrow. "You know, when my mother asked me the worst thing I ever did with my life, I told her it was what happened between us. Even angry. Even bitter. It was wrong, and... 'm sorry."

It didn't change much, but maybe... maybe it changed something. Some intangible thing. She didn't know. It seemed like it should. Her eyes narrowed, brows furrowed upward slightly as she tried to figure out how she should take the admission and correction.

Love. There'd been a lot of love between them, and a lot of it lost. Sort of. It turned into something else, anyway. She didn't love Sadie anymore, did she?

...did she?

Hello, little voice that's supposed to answer internal questions. Donnie speaking. Did she? Or didn't she?

She kissed the mesh of fingers again and sighed, not saying anything else. She felt oddly mellow.

[carcinoGeneticist]

Sadie let out a short, almost harsh-sounding laugh as Donnie spoke. Yes, she always had been the bitch, hadn't she? But this time, it had a different ring to it, something more tolorable and playful. There wasn't time for her to reply, however, because she found her fingers being sprinkled with the lightest of kisses, so soft she almost wondered if she'd made it up. Though the edges of her vision were blurred, she could still clearly make out Donnie's shape, her lips pressed against Sadie's hand...

Her skin, flushed from the alcohol, went white. Then it darkened once more, the freckles nearly vanishing against her cheeks. Donnie's words did nothing to help the situation.

As Donnie kissed her fingers again, Sadie fought a war against her own mind. Her emotions were in a turmoil against themselves and against the physical reactions she felt to Donnie's touch, and her lips parted. "Oh..[/b]" the mantis whispered, voice faltering slightly. What should she do? Donnie had a strange, distant sort of look, and rather abruptly (thank you, wine) Sadie felt as though she needed to do something to pull her back in.

So she leaned in suddenly, intending to gracefully lean across the table and place a kiss on Donnie's cheek, chaste and sensitive, perhaps even soothing. What actually happened was far less graceful but more tempered with Charm, making her motions seem much more lovely than they must have actually been. That she could have seen, the alcohol in her blood making her feel off-balance. But what she wasn't expecting was for her lips, seemingly of their own accord, to meet Donnie's.

She froze for a moment, then kissed the other woman, her bright eyes closing slowly.

This was okay, too. Of course.

[The Jenn]

Startled out of her mental drifting by sudden movement, Donnie raised her free hand in an instinct to protect her face. Somehow that hand ended up on Sadie's shoulder while the Diamond's elbow slipped in an adorably awkward and teen-like way when she tried to lean over the table. She still managed, though, and warm lips met. The alcohol on their breath was strong.

She made a noise in the back of her throat, something between startled and questioning, before she squeezed their twined hands tighter and leaned in to deepen the kiss.

What was she doing? The part of her mind asking the question was shoved back by the fuzzy and infinitely more pleasant feeling of buoyancy that contributed to the surreal nature of the kiss. There was no getting around how real it was, though, or how real Sadie was in that moment. Damn. She remembered these lips. She dreamed about them sometimes. She doubted she'd ever be able to forget them. Slowly her hand traveled from the woman's shoulder to her neck, fingers sliding around to the back and brushing hairs at the nape.

Oh, this was nice. Something in her head continued pointing out that this was probably a bad idea, but she ignored the little voice in favor of another kiss. The table remained partly in the way.

[carcinoGeneticist]

There wasn't really any question of what would happen next. Sadie felt warm, light and floaty, and fuzzed over. There were Donnie's hands, as she remembered them. There were her lips. She dimly was aware of them moving, leaving the bar, going somewhere else. Soft, white sheets over an equally soft bed. More kissing, arms and legs tangling...

Then...

~~~

When the morning sun broke over her, Sadie's face scrunched up. There was a faint pain in her head, not quite a hangover, but evidence that she'd had too much to drink the night before. She turned over, finding the weight in the bed beside her, circling her arms around it and snuggling close. She felt warm, stiff and sore in all the right ways, and sighed happily. She was finding herself entertaining thoughts of another round before she remembered the rest of the night. She froze, then slowly opened her eyes, looking up at Donnie.

Oh. Oh, right.

"...Ah.. Good morning, Donnie,[/b]" the mantis said, abruptly feeling rather faint as she pulled the sheets up in an effort to cover herself. The blush on her face more than clearly spoke the rest of the woman's thoughts. She couldn't believe it, and pulled up on the covers a little more, letting them slide over most of her face until just her eyes and the top of her head showed.

[The Jenn]

Donnie woke up slowly, her face buried in a pillow and her head feeling like someone was trying to squeeze her brain out through her nostrils. Definitely a hangover. Damn it all to hell. How much had she drunk? Her memory was fuzzy upon first waking. There had been wine, and sex... oh yes, she could smell the sex, and her body ached luxuriously except for the utterly distracting pain of her head.

But she wasn't in her bed. She didn't smell anything but a faint scent of Yarrow everywhere. And that wasn't Raina next to her this morning, was it?

The thought had her sitting bolt upright, which was a very poor decision in hindsight. She sank back to the pillows with a groan, burying her head and digging her fingers into the yielding cotton. It all smelled like Yarrow, a combination of the natural environment, whatever they used to wash it, and Sadie. Daaaaamn it. Oh damn. She wasn't sure if she moaned any curses out loud into the pillow or not, but she may have. Her fingers clenched tighter.

A greeting? "Nrrphgl," she grunted into the pillow, unwilling to raise her head at that second and see... well, everything. Also, the light made her head want to explode a little bit. She looked up nevertheless, wisdom and caution never having been her strongest suits, and met the brilliantly pink eyes with fuzzy yellow ones. Oh wow. Talk about bed hair. How adorable. "Your head looks like a topiary," she said muzzily, and wondered if that conveyed everything she needed to say. Was she still a little drunk? How much had she had? But no, because there was pain. But... ow.

[carcinoGeneticist]

From the way the woman beside her moved, Sadie could tell that the headache she had was mild compared to Donnie's. The short greeting only served to reaffirm that. From what Sadie remembered, the woman had never exactly been eloquent in the morning, but "nrrphgl" was remarkably pained, even taking that into consideration. When they made eye contact, Sadie relaxed slightly, letting the sheets down so that they simply wrapped around her body, rather than her face. The fact that Donnie wasn't freaking out was a good indication to the mantis that maybe she didn't need to freak out, either.

She laughed softly, reaching up to touch her hair and finding it a complete wreck. "It certainly feels like one,[/b]" she replied, using her fingers to brush through it, attempting to work it back into some semblance of order. It wasn't quite the same without the pigtails, but for the time being, it would have to do. "Better?[/b]" she asked after giving it one more stroke. Then she sighed.

"Donnie... This can't happen again. Us. I don't think I can be alone with you, at least when alcohol's involved.[/b]" last night had been lovely, sweet, and should never have happened. As strongly as she'd felt, the things that had been said... No. None of it could be. She swallowed, hard. "But at least we know we can work together without causing some kind of war between our Suits, right?[/b]"

It disturbed her how much she'd rather stay in the bed rather than leave. It disturbed her even more when she took into consideration the fact that the alcohol was not in her system anymore.

[The Jenn]

"Better," Donnie agreed, the mumbled word only discernible because it sounded so much like the actual spoken word only a moment before. Damn damn damn, but she hated hangovers. This was why she didn't drink so fucking much! Nrrgh.

She gave a halfhearted stretch, belatedly realizing that a boob had just said good morning to them both and moving her arm back in front of it as she pulled the pillow around more comfortably. Shit, she felt like crap and shit and awesome, all at the same time. This wasn't such a great thing to wake up to. Fuck. There weren't enough curses in her pained head to do the situation justice just then. She didn't want to move, and she missed the warmth that was slowly fading from her side, proof that they'd been tangled quite comfortably together only moments before.

"Th' wine was a bad idea," she agreed. Her knuckles were turning white on the pillow. Clutching the thing really helped keep her from doing anything stupid, like screaming or flailing out of bed or asking for another kiss. Her lips felt bruised. So did her arm. So did... well, that was fine. her head was not. "No more bars, just the official crap. No wars. Jus' talk. Damn."

[carcinoGeneticist]

There was a softness on Sadie's face that Donnie probably wouldn't notice if only because her vision was so blurred, a memory of another morning that had gone a lot like this, except without the talk of it never happening again. She wanted to lean over and smooth the hair covering Donnie's face, but she couldn't. Not only that, but even if she could, she wouldn't. Of course. When the boob said hello, Sadie flushed anew and looked away politely, only turning her attention back to the wolverine when the sounds of shuffling had stopped.

"Damn,[/b]" Sadie echoed vaguely, glancing around the room to see exactly where her clothes had been strewn. Directly by the door. Great. She just hoped she had waited until they were completely in the room, door closed behind them, until she'd started stripping. As it was, she was pondering how best to get to them, since she didn't really want to stay in the bed beside her ex for another minute.

Feelings were hard to ignore, especially when they'd risen up so strongly only a night before. Sadie needed some distance, and fast.

It seemed like the best way to get to her clothes was casually, so she crawled out of the bed and made her way over to get dressed, pretending as if it wasn't embarassing in the slightest. When she was at least partially decent again, she glanced back at Donnie's figure. "Do you want me to get you a glass of water and an asprin?[/b]

[The Jenn]

Donnie was too out of it to notice the soft expression on the other human's face, but she got a hint that the other woman wasn't as composed as she could be when she actually got up and started dressing. Huh. Definitely not thinking clearly. The wolverine stretched again, shifting to biped as she did so. The bed creaked a mild protest against the sudden increase in concentrated weight but she ignored it entirely. This furniture was built to hold bigger.

"That'd be fuckin' fantastic of you. Feel like shit," Sharper teeth made for a bigger yawn as she rolled over, no longer having to worry about modesty. The bed smelled an awful lot like everything they'd done last night. Part of her wanted to jump up. The larger part said that would be a singularly stupid thing to do, since she'd end up on her face. In front of her ex. Thanks but no. She compromised and slowly, with sluggish and reluctant motions, got out of the bed. Where was her jewelry?

...that was an earring in the window shade, wasn't it? She wouldn't touch that yet. Light was behind the cursed thing. Hiss, boo. None of that.