Chapter Text
Waverly likes to stargaze in the summers. You like to picnic, so you kill two birds with one stone, as it were.
Fridays are date nights, and Wynonna vacates the homestead gracelessly and tactlessly--usually with some comment about "Haught sex" or "keep those crusty hands off my sister" or something in between--and you and Waverly lay a big fleece blanket in the grass of the homestead's sprawling property.
Waverly is a great baker, especially considering all of her treats are usually sugar-free, dairy-free, and gluten-free. It took you a few weeks, but you managed to compromise: if she's going to take all the fun out of dessert, you're allowed to have a slice of pizza or a sandwich for dinner. You bring your own entree--she usually makes herself a fun-free, dairy-free, fat-free salad--and you sit on the blanket at sunset and eat.
Purgatory may be hell on Earth--literally and figuratively--sometimes, but it does have some beautiful views. When the sun dips below the mountains on the horizon just so, it lights the sky in a stunning show of technicolor. Pinks and yellows and oranges highlight all of the flawlessness of the landscape, with the flora glowing and the ice caps of the mountains shimmering like precious jewels.
Waverly's beautiful, beautiful face, framed by her long mermaid hair, is angelic in the sunset. The light shines over the planes of her face and highlights her eyes, which take on a blue-green hue framing the amber ring around her pupil. You think you'll never get used to how beautiful Waverly is. And then she reaches out and fingers some strands of your hair, which shines orange and gold in the sunset, and your heart flutters. It beats in time to the rhythm of her name in your ears. Wa-ver-ly. Wa-ver-ly.
You're everything, you think, and don't have the courage to say. So you say nothing, but you hope she hears it anyway.
When your dinner is done, the sun is usually mostly gone. Waverly pulls out a thermos of dairy-free, sugar-free hot cocoa--which you drink even though it tastes like cardboard--and hands you a fun-free brownie--which you eat because it actually tastes good somehow--and you lay down, shoulder to shoulder, to watch the stars appear.
It's a game in the beginning, the two of you racing to try to find the first star to appear. Sometimes, when you're feeling particularly playful, you roll over on top of Waverly and tell her the stars are in her eyes, and you pepper kisses along her face and neck as she giggles beneath you.
Today, a Friday, marks the end of a particularly brutal week. Someone has been vandalizing the store fronts in downtown Purgatory and they're smart enough to leave behind no evidence, and you were called to the scene of a gruesome hit-and-run that left a local elementary-school teacher in the ICU. You've gotten the grand total of sixteen hours of sleep since Monday, and your body is wilting beneath the exhaustion and misery. Your grateful for some time away from it all, just you and Waverly.
She knows about the vandal, about the teacher, and about how little sleep you're getting--she's been coming to your apartment to feed Calamity Jane at night and in the morning, since you're only home for two or three hours in the dead of night.
It's a clear Friday night, and the two of you have been laying mostly in silence, your head cradled in Waverly's lap, watching them begin to appear. You point as soon as you see the first star. "There it is," you mumble. "I win."
"Yeah, baby," Waverly agrees, twisting her fingers in your hair. She scratches your scalp and you close your eyes, humming. "You win, love."
It's a new pet-name, and you preen. Waverly's made her voice low and calm over the sound of crickets and the occasional breeze. You don't say much, you're not really in the mood to talk tonight, and Waverly knows you well enough by now not to push. She wraps her body around yours, ever soft, and holds you until you feel like talking again, or she babbles random factoids because you like the sound of her voice.
"Did you know that stars don't twinkle?" Waverly asks. You shake your head without opening your eyes, and she runs her fingers lightly over your forehead. "If a star twinkles, it's not because of the star, but actually the Earth's unstable atmosphere. The lightwaves are distorted as they enter Earth's atmosphere."
You open your eyes, expecting to see Waverly looking up at the sky. Instead, she's bent over so that she's looking down directly at you. Even in the darkness settling around you, her eyes are clear, and like a star in the unstable sky, shimmering. You reach up and rest your fingers against her cheek. In the sky above her, you see a shooting star, and you wish for a trillion more nights like these with Waverly.