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Midnight had already been and gone by the time Cordelia crept into the master bedroom at long last. Misty, having tried to keep herself awake for her wife-to-be’s arrival was in the midst of a thorough yawn when the Supreme pushed the door to a close with a silent flick of the wrist.
“You took your time,” Misty called from the bed, earning a light scoff from the Supreme.
“I told you, you didn’t have to wait up for me.”
“’Course I don’t have to.”
“But you do,” Cordelia sighed.
“But I do.”
When she could manage to anyway. Not every vigil for the Supreme’s sleepless hours was upheld so easily, the swamp witch having given in to the throes of heavy sleep more than once before Cordelia would finally join her. Tonight at least, she had managed to keep herself on the cusp of awareness. Shuffling in the sheets of the big bed, Misty burrowed herself down from her slouched sitting position, unfolding her knees and stretching beneath the soft layers already warm from where they had previously been draped over her lap. She rolled over slightly, to make room and waited for Cordelia to pull up the covers and climb inside.
Cordelia, meanwhile, had been reluctantly slipping the heavy velvet floral shawl from around her shoulders, folding it over the chair she had already dropped her heels by. She had been more grateful than she cared to admit when earlier that evening Misty had come shuffling into her office in the Supreme’s own fluffiest socks – looking ridiculous with the rest of her ensemble - and placed a sweet mug of decadent hot chocolate on her desk. Despite many an appeal from Misty, Cordelia had insisted there was still more important work to be done and she couldn’t let the cold weather convince her to quit. Spotting the goose-bumps along the back of Cordelia’s neck as she had shifted the older blonde’s hair so carefully aside to kiss it, Misty had wasted no time unravelling the thick shawl from her own shoulders and draping it protectively around the hard-working Supreme witch. Knowing she had plenty of other shawls stashed in their shared wardrobe, Cordelia had made no complaint, if anything she had pulled the material tighter around herself the second Misty was out of sight, breathing in the rich earthy scents that could only come from one witch in particular. Still she treated the item with care, it was as much a part of Misty as anything else and the fact she had parted with it at all said plenty for how she felt. Cordelia folded the rest of her things into the laundry basket once she had changed and shuffled towards the bed.
Pulling the blanket up, already feeling the warmth provided by Misty’s body heat beckoning, Cordelia curled up under the covers, folding her smaller frame into the space beside Misty. In less than a second it took to breathe in the soft warm scents, Misty’s long arms had snaked around the older woman’s midriff, drawing her closer still. Without thinking, Cordelia curled herself into the embrace, smooth legs brushing Misty’s as they entwined…
“Jesus, Delia,” Misty hissed, a low rasp at the woman’s ear. “Your feet are freezin’”
“It’s cold,” was all the Supreme said with the slightest shrug she could manage wrapped in Misty’s arms.
“No shit,” Misty’s grip only tightened with the revelation, rather than pull away, hands working up and down Cordelia’s arm to rub some warmth into the cool witch faster. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, burrowing her head against the long blonde locks. “I would have given you the socks!”
“You looked so adorable in them; I couldn’t take them away.” It wasn’t a lie; as ridiculous as the lime green fuzz had looked on the lithe woman’s feet – like she had stepped in a bank of radioactive moss and it had grown around her ankles – it had looked so endearing. Where on earth Misty had dug them out from, Cordelia had no clue. She could have sworn she had been all but forced to throw away such an ugly pair, and wouldn’t have put it past Madison to have torched them for her after catching her in them once and claiming the colour, the fuzz, everything about the socks had just made her eyes bleed. She hadn’t seen them since, until Misty had shuffled into her office in them having complained of cold feet for the past few days. Clearly in her hunt for a solution, she had been hunting deeper into Cordelia’s closet than the Supreme had expected. And apparently, Cordelia realised, noticing the thick sleeve over Misty’s arm, the socks hadn’t been the only thing she had found. “Is that my sweatshirt?”
“Mmmhmm,” Misty murmured into Cordelia’s hair. Besides Misty, no-one had ever seen the slate-grey jumper before. It was a rare occasion for the witch to be caught in something so dressed down and to the untrained eye one would have thought it didn’t get worn too often but the grey had faded to a lighter shade and the cuffs were frayed from years of fingers fiddling and twisting the ends of the arms. On Misty’s longer limbs, the cuffs that covered Cordelia’s hands rested just over her wrist, although at the moment all her shuffling had risen the sleeve to bunch along her forearm, leaving the recently warm skin exposed.
The swamp witch nodded slightly, nuzzling into Cordelia’s caramel locks a little more before the Supreme felt the woman close enough to feel the shift of a frown that briefly crossed Misty’s face. A dreadful thought had only just crossed the swamp witch’s mind.
“Wait…” Cordelia did. “Not Hank’s is it?”
“Oh god no,” the Supreme shook her head with a laugh. “Don’t worry. He never even saw me wear it,” she reassured. Now that was a half-lie; he had caught her only once, curled up on the divan downstairs reading when he had come home unexpectedly early from one of his business trips. The disturbed look on his face when he had found her like that, the look of almost disapproval of being caught in such a dressed down baggy way had made her fill with something like shame then and only irked her now. He probably would have given her the same look had she been sat there dressed in a bin bag eating from a bowl of chips with a beer. She had only ever worn it out of sight from then on, nights when she knew he wouldn’t be home or she could be certain he wouldn’t be inclined to turn up out of the blue.
“Well then, he was either blind or stupid,” Misty’s voice cut through Cordelia’s reverie. “Prob’ly both.”
“Not that I don’t agree with you,” Cordelia said with another chuckle, “but what makes you say that?”
“Cuz who’d want to miss seeing how cute you look, all small.” Misty’s hands roamed then, up and down Cordelia’s arms, fingers tickling the skin of her ribs as they fluttered past.
“Not that small!” the defiant retort fell on deaf ears as Misty was too preoccupied with stroking her nose with the edge of the sleeve she had playfully pulled over her hand.
“Be honest, this thing swamps you.”
“Ha, funny—” Cordelia swatted at the grey sleeve, trying to grasp Misty’s hand to push it away from her face.
“—Means you’re small” The taller witch teased, seeming entirely too amused by the whole debacle until she finally caved and let Cordelia catch her wrist.
“Does this mean you’ll give it back?”
“Hmm…” a fake thoughtful pout crossed Misty’s face then, before she tilted her head and stuck her tongue between her teeth. “I’ll think about it.”
“Alright then…” Cordelia conceded, knowing full well that more than likely meant ‘no.’ Or at least, not any time soon. She was just about to reach to brush aside a stray tangle of Misty’s hair that had fallen in her face—
“Ugh, come here!”
“Misty!” Cordelia yelped, though it soon fell into a breathy laugh. The swamp witch had rolled her warm hands underneath Cordelia’s hip and twisted her over so they were face to face, pulling the older witch closer so they could burrow into the shared embrace of each other. Or rather more accurately, the taller witch could tangle herself like a vine around the marble carving of the Supreme’s skin. Misty’s fingers found the curve of her hip, smoothing round to settle at the dip of her back, pressing her impossibly closer, closing any possible gap for cool air to reside in, trapped between the crushed layers of skin and silk and cotton.
“How do you live in this cold?” Misty exhaled, hot breath brushing along the steady pulse of Cordelia’s neck.
“I thought you used to live out in the swamps?” Cordelia asked, burying her hands under the sweatshirt to rest against Misty’s warm abdomen. “Shouldn’t you be used to this?”
“Not now you’ve spoiled me!” the swamp witch wriggled under the cool contact. “What do you even run on here? Some Supreme thermostat?”
“Mm…Coffee…” Cordelia’s muffled voice came from somewhere buried in Misty’s hair at her shoulder.
“And cuddles?”
“…And cuddles.” The Supreme was clinging as much as Misty, waiting for the warmth of the witch to reach her blood as her magic already had done.
“Well, obviously not enough. We’re gonna have to do something about that.”
“What do you mean?” Cordelia lifted her head, brow quirking a little; “I drink loads of coffee…”
“No, I know. You’re like a damn walking espresso machine,” Misty said, equally pulling back just enough to look at her love judgingly. “No, I mean this. You and Me. Right now.”
“Hmm?”
“You are not leaving this bed.” Misty’s arms around Cordelia’s back drew closer together, encircling the Supreme completely until she was all but locked in the sure embrace.
“Misty…” Cordelia wriggled a little, but the movement only made the swamp witch smile at the playful futility of it. Unless the Supreme was planning on using magic, she wouldn’t be escaping Misty’s grasp any time soon.
“Nuh-uh. You are not leaving this bed until I say you’re warm enough and” she gave her another slight squeeze for emphasis, “filled your quota’ of cuddles for the day.”
Cordelia gave a disgruntled huff of air, hands still sandwiched against Misty’s warm abdomen, the smooth skin of it under her fingertips as she tried to push back, admittedly without too much effort.
“What if I still have work to do?” she complained.
“You do.” Another gentle squeeze, a stolen kiss to the temple. “You’re doing it right now.”
“You know…” Cordelia twisted her hands, trying to work her fingers free enough
“You’re not getting out of this,” Misty shook her head, nibbling on her lip, “don’t even try and talk me out of it.”
“I was going to say, if you let me finish…” the Supreme’s left hand slipped down Misty’s abdomen, eliciting a slight, delighted shiver the swamp witch couldn’t quite supress, particularly the further down it went, the sensation no longer cold but still pleasantly cool against the simmering heat under the bedsheets. “I know of something else I could be doing, right now…to keep us both warm…”
“Wha…oh. OOOH.”
“Mmmhmm.”
“Now why didn’t you say something earlier?” Misty asked, lifting herself up from where she lay, to hurriedly start pulling at the faded sleeves over her arms.
“You seemed a little preoccupied,” the Supreme said as she helped lift the hem up over Misty’s toned abdomen, letting her hands rest on the warm taut skin there. In her fumbling rush, or perhaps somewhat deliberately, the simple cotton shirt she had also been wearing underneath had also been caught, tangled in the removal, stuck to the inside of the sweatshirt like a second layer – but so long as it was no longer stuck to Misty’s skin, it really didn’t matter much at all…
“Won’t be needing this then…” Misty huffed in response as she pulled the sweatshirt – and shirt – finally free over her head, tossing it carelessly behind her to the floor.
“I’ll need that back,” Cordelia giggled, as Misty twisted her over with much less effort.
“It’s yours. This however…” her warm hands found Cordelia’s cool midriff under her shirt, pushing up at the material, encircling her ribs as the swamp witch straddled her waist. “This is mine…” she purred, nipping at the Supreme’s pulse point just past her ear. “All mine.”
A breathless laugh came from the beauty underneath her, Cordelia’s hands snaking over her ribs, brushing the curve of her breasts to meet at the muscle below Misty’s shoulders. “Whadisit?” the swamp witch growled, feeling the pressure of those precious fingertips, wondering what could be amusing the Supreme so when she had barely begun…
“Misty…” came the soft whisper in her ear, “you forgot the socks.”
And sure enough, the briefest half glance behind her revealed the offensive green fuzz still on her feet. She wriggled her toes and slipped the socks from her feet, tossing them on top of the discarded jumper on the floor. Only to see Cordelia’s shirt tossed passed her line of vision as well. She turned back to the Supreme, who lay waiting, unclasped bra in hand. Well? The rise of the Supreme’s brow seemed to ask, as Misty’s surprised look became a sly grin instead. She took the material in her own hands and tossed it back, onto the growing pile, before lowering herself back towards her waiting witch. She would take of that mess on the floor later, but she had a much warmer, more important one to take care of first…