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Miriam takes evening baths, is something Arabella knows about her now.
Well. When they’re not in the middle of an evening gunfight or out tracking the undead across the desert or other such tomfoolery. Tonight is a quiet night, by their standards, and so Miriam is in the tub, a familiar glass of whiskey loosely clasped in her hand and her hair pinned up out of her face.
The sight never fails to make Arabella weak in the knees.
Miriam leans back and smiles at her, raises a hand to beckon her over.
Arabella sets her bag down on the bedside table, and begins unbuttoning her dress. She leaves a trail of garments on her way to the tub – her dress, her petticoat, her slip, the damned corset – they all fall away in a fan behind her. She sinks to her knees beside Miriam and leans in for a kiss.
Miriam leans forward and Arabella slides in behind her, shuddering as the warm water soothes away the aches and pains of the day. They slot together like puzzle pieces, and Arabella draws them closer still, wrapping her arms around Miriam’s waist and tucking her head against her neck. Miriam hums and rubs her hand slowly along Arabella’s arm, relaxing into her.
They sit like that for a while longer, entwined around each other, the distant sound of the town filtering in through the window. Miriam squeezes their hands together and Arabella can’t stand it, can’t comprehend how close they are and how she wants to be closer still, so she presses a helpless kiss to Miriam’s neck, her cheek, the precious corner of her temple.
It scares her sometimes, the feelings. She knows she feels too much, all the time, that it is overwhelming for others never mind herself, and Cynthia was the only one who understood and look how that ended? Bullets and rot and heartbreak.
She has nightmares where they leave her; where she wakes only for their little family to be nowhere in town, long gone, not even distant figures in the horizon. Those are somehow the worst because they are free from the druglike haze of the Dealer, which means they are truly her own.
But Miriam is like her, from all that she’s seen. She has a spine of steel and endless depths of calm running through her like a lifeline – for all that Arabella is a raw nerve Miriam is a blizzard: relentless and terrifying and lovely.
Miriam seems to sense her distress and turns to kiss her deeply, her hands sliding into her hair.
“You got those crazy thoughts running around again?” She asks, pulling back to cup Arabella’s cheek. “I can feel your mind spinning from here.”
I don’t know what to do with all the love I have for you.
Arabella tilts her head closer. “Bad dreams rattling around. Nothing new.”
Miriam hums and rubs her thumb along Arabella’s lips, pulling her forward for another kiss before leaning back with a sigh. “Can’t have that, now can we?”
“Better give you something to do.” And she turns and gestures to the various soaps and shampoos sitting on a tray, and waits.
Arabella breathes out slowly and begins removing the pins from Miriam’s hair. She carefully sets them aside and helps Miriam submerge, her hair curling around them like ink. Miriam winks at her from below the water before rising again, and Arabella swats her shoulder without any true force.
“Flirt.”
“It worked on you, baby.”
They settle back into each other, Arabella lathering the shampoo into Miriam’s hair, one hand shielding her eyes. This she knows. This rhythm is simple, and soothing, and her mind quiets as she washes her lover clean.
They lay together until the water starts to cool. Arabella feels somewhat in a daze, the snarling demons in her head gone muted and distant. In this room there is only the fading sunlight drifting through the window, the duvet soft and inviting in the corner, Miriam’s hair against her cheek.
Miriam murmurs something and Arabella shakes herself closer to clarity, helps them both out of the tub and reaches for the neatly folded towel. She methodically makes her way down, drying Miriam’s shoulders, the dip between her breasts, her stomach, her calves. She stops to lean her head against Miriam’s thigh, presses a kiss to Miriam’s hand.
Arabella is a proud woman. She does not kneel easily. But here, on her knees with her lips against Miriam’s palm, is the closest she has felt to a benediction. Miriam’s hands shift to card softly through her hair, and then she is being urged up, still gently, ever so gently, to her feet once more.
“Your turn,” Miriam says, wrapping the towel around her, taking the same exquisite care with Arabella’s body that Arabella had with her.
They stand there for a moment, bathed in the dying light, and then Miriam leads her gently to the bed, and like magnets they fit themselves together again, whole and balanced against the world.
The town is breathing outside, monsters no doubt lurking in its shadows. Tomorrow the sun will rise and yet another insanity will most likely make itself known. But for now the candles flicker softly against the darkness, and the beating of her lover’s heart is pulling her towards sleep, the strongest sentry she’s ever known.