Work Text:
Nicole walked in just in the nick of time to prevent a murder.
The kitchen table was blanketed in a veritable tablecloth of books and papers and file folders. Manila envelopes stuffed with police records lay underneath research tomes flagged with sticky notes, alongside notebooks and photocopies and just paper, paper, paper. Jeremy was on his laptop, clicking through some old Black Badge records he had “found” on the hard drive, and Waverly was flipping page by page through a dusty text.
More importantly, Waverly was about to start strangling Jeremy.
Usually, she loved him and his endlessly upbeat attitude, his quirky stories and esoteric jokes, but today had been a long, crappy day, and the click-click-click of his keyboard and tap-tap-tap of his trackpad had been drilling themselves into her skull for hours, and if she had to hear the clack of the spacebar even one more time…
“Hey, cutie,” Nicole greeted her as she closed the door behind herself, unknowingly interrupting Waverly’s thoughts and saving Jeremy from a bloody fate.
Waverly glanced up from her research just long enough to acknowledge her, as the smell of crisp air and sweet vanilla permeated the room’s stale, dusty interior. Nicole was clearly fresh off work, still in full uniform. Her Sheriff’s department jacket hung open, its zippers framing her navy tie— a fact that under different circumstances, Waverly may have taken advantage of. Of all the different uniforms Nicole had worn since they met, she had a particular weakness for that tie and how it made for such a nice handhold.
But today, such things were far from Waverly’s mind. She hadn’t slept well the night before, mostly because Nicole hadn’t slept well the night before. Despite her obvious attempts to shield Waverly from her ongoing nightmares, she sometimes tossed and turned in the night, her distress making itself known in involuntary whimpers and moans. Sometimes soothing words and touches helped, and other times they didn’t. That night had been the latter.
Follow up that sleepless night with a long day squinting at tiny, fading text and laptop clicking noises and this one freaking symbol that she knew she had seen before somewhere, if she could only just remember where—
She felt a touch on her shoulder and jumped, startled. Nicole pulled back, first looking confused and apologetic, then sympathetic.
“Hey, it’s just me,” she said gently. Her warm brown eyes seemed to take in the table and its chaotic spread of papers. “How long have you been working on all this?”
Waverly opened her mouth to say not that long, but Jeremy answered first.
“Seven hours and… thirty-six minutes,” he calculated quickly. “If you don’t count lunch.”
Nicole’s eyebrows crept upwards.
“That’s… a really long time. And I say that as someone whose job is half paperwork.” She tugged gently at Waverly’s sleeve. “Why don’t you take a break?”
Waverly shook her head immediately, imagining how hard it would be to walk away and come back, having completely lost her train of thought and possibly even lost her place in the book.
“No, I can’t yet. Not until I find this symbol.”
She thought that would be the end of it— Nicole was always quick to give her space if she asked for it— but this time, her girlfriend’s hand didn’t immediately leave her arm. Instead, Nicole gave a thoughtful hum, then let her hand drift slowly, slowly upwards.
“Seven hours, eh?” she said in a faux-casual tone, her hand trailing along the top of Waverly’s shoulder. “Hunched over all these books?”
There was some undertone in her voice— something a little teasing. Waverly’s brain was too overtaxed to give it much attention, even as the hand continued its slow, languid path.
“Yeah, what—” Waverly started to ask some variation of what are you doing or what does that matter, but right as she started, Nicole pressed the heel of her hand right into the crick in her neck that had been building all day. “Ohhhhhhh…” She hadn’t meant to moan so pathetically, but the sudden release of pressure was so unexpected and so welcome that the relief spilled out of her on pure instinct. Nicole’s touch seemed to single-handedly silence her building tension headache, and it was the most miraculous thing that had happened all day.
Nicole cleared her throat, a bit bashfully, at the sound of her moan.
“Uh, sorry, Jeremy.”
“Oh, um… no problem.” Jeremy raised the headphones from where they hung around his neck and clamped them over his ears. “There. I hear nothing, I see nothing. I’m basically in a parallel dimension,” he said, leaning down low over his computer to give them the illusion of privacy.
Nicole leaned down to speak directly into her ear.
“Come take a break with me. Just five minutes. Please?” She attempted a winning smile. More importantly, either intentionally or not, she lightened the pressure from her hand, causing the pain and tension to trickle back in. Waverly leaned back into it, trying to compensate for the loss.
“Okay, fine, five minutes,” she relented. Nicole beamed at her.
“Great! Come outside with me.”
“Outside?” Waverly furrowed her brow.
“The fresh air will help. Come on. Just for five minutes.”
The thought of moving left Waverly feeling mixed. On the one hand, the kitchen chairs were not built to be comfortable for eight hours at a time, and the thought of standing and stretching was a welcome one. Her whole body felt tired and stiff from sitting so long. On the other hand, leaving the table would definitely mean losing the sense of flow she had created in how the papers and books were spread out on the tabletop.
But Nicole’s face was hopeful, and her smile was encouraging, and Waverly knew that logically, she was probably right…
“Fine. Five minutes.”
Her joints smarted as she stood, the casualty of eight hours sitting in almost the exact same position. Nicole took her by the hand and led her out onto the porch, letting her stretch and loosen up while Nicole herself took a seat on the porch steps. It was cool, but not cold, and the Homestead was lit dimly by the setting sun.
After a minute, Nicole patted the step in front of her, invitingly. With only a hint of reluctance, Waverly obeyed, sinking down onto the aged, sun-warmed wood. The Homestead was blanketed in twilight, a smattering of stars just barely visible in the sky, a light breeze blowing across the surrounding fields.
“See? It’s beautiful out,” Nicole said encouragingly. Waverly crossed her arms.
“It’s cold,” she deadpanned, not really because it was, but because she was feeling petulant and argumentative. Nevertheless, Nicole shrugged off her jacket and draped it over Waverly’s legs like a blanket. It was still warm from her body, and when Waverly pulled it higher and inhaled, she could smell fresh air and vanilla-dipped donuts. It smelled a lot like home, and like the end of the day. She felt some of the fight leave her. “Only five minutes, though,” she said tiredly, as a reminder. She could still feel the pile of books on the table, counting the seconds of her absence. The mystery symbol seemed to taunt her from afar.
The porch creaked, and she felt Nicole settle closer against her back, bracketing her with her long legs and resting a hand on her shoulder. The other hand reached forward to show Waverly the screen of her phone, where she hit “Start” on a five-minute timer. Then, she set the phone next to them and put both hands on Waverly’s shoulders.
“Warm enough now?” Nicole asked her, and she nodded, feeling foolish and immature for having whined about the temperature. The porch was warm, and the sun was warm, and the jacket was warm, and— above all— Nicole’s body was warm. If anything, it was surprisingly cozy, sitting there on the porch step. “Good. Then let’s see what we can do about this…”
Nicole’s hands began smoothing over her neck and shoulders in wide circles. Her touch was gentle at first, but as Waverly leaned in, she pressed down, rubbing into the tired muscles. Waverly let out a long, relieved hum and let her head drop forward as the stiffness began to soften.
“You know, you don’t need to push yourself to breaking point,” Nicole said, as her warm hands worked miracles on the stubborn knots in Waverly’s shoulders.
Waverly sighed, as all the worries that had plagued her all day— needing to find answers, needing to know where that symbol was from, needing to translate that text— started to feel more and more distant. Here in the present, there was just Nicole’s touch and the endless Alberta landscape. She could feel the stress of the day receding, slinking away into a dark corner of her mind.
“I know. I just… wanted to… lower…”
“Just… wanted to lower what?” Nicole asked, audibly confused. Waverly groaned.
“Your hands, move them a little lower.”
“Oh.” Nicole chuckled, and obeyed, sliding her hands down to rub into the tension from below. Waverly sighed blissfully as the muscles there started to unwind even more, her chin falling against her chest. “Better?”
“Perfect…” The air was fresh and crisp, and she could smell the earth that surrounded the Homestead. Crickets trilled in the grass, and everything just felt simpler and cleaner than it had just minutes ago. The heavy, solid ache that came from a long day hunched over books seemed to break apart and fall away.
“Don’t think I’m going to forget about this skill of yours later,” she murmured, as Nicole’s hands inched slowly, deliciously down her spine.
Nicole chuckled again, the sound warm and comforting in the cool twilight.
“Ask anytime. My hands are at your disposal.”
“I guess I always knew you were good with them. Your hands, I mean.”
“They do serve me well.”
“I think they serve me better,” Waverly murmured, as said hands reached the tension in the small of her back and redoubled their efforts, kneading into the tired spots and making her groan pathetically. It was heaven.
Just as it was starting to get really good, they were interrupted by the loud, jarring sound of Nicole’s phone alarm splitting the quiet evening. Nicole’s hands paused on her lower back, making her want to groan again, this time in disappointment.
“That’s five minutes,” Nicole said, not quite pulling away yet, but not continuing either. She was clearly waiting for Waverly’s response.
Waverly side-eyed the phone accusingly.
“You know, I think a… ten-minute break is… probably fine,” she said, with an air of innocence in her voice. She felt Nicole chuckle again.
“As you wish,” Nicole murmured into her hair, pressing a kiss into the crown of her head. The phone’s timer was reset.
And Nicole’s hands returned to their duties on the tired muscles of her lower back. As they finished their task there and began to work their way back up towards her neck and shoulders, Waverly let herself slump back. Her back collided with Nicole’s front, which was warm and supportive and just a very comfortable thing to lean back against, especially as her hands went back to kneading her shoulders.
She started to wonder if she could get away with not going back to the table with all the papers, if maybe instead she and Nicole could just curl up on the porch swing or the couch or in front of the fire and put off the rest of the work until tomorrow.
It had been a long day.
It seemed like there couldn’t possibly be any more tension left in her entire body, but Nicole’s hands kept gliding over her in soothing circles, just for the sake of touching. Then, finally, they both slid forward and Waverly was just being held in the warm circle of Nicole’s arms.
The sky over the mountains was changing with the sunset, the clouds reflecting back gold, then orange, then pink. The breeze smelled like grass and a hint of frost, but Waverly was warm.
She felt a weight on the top of her head— a kiss, and then just Nicole’s head resting there, like she was breathing her in.
Then the alarm went off again, obnoxiously disrupting the moment.
Waverly rolled her eyes at the rude interruption. She felt Nicole chuckle, felt the vibration of it against her back.
“Five more minutes? Or would a fifteen-minute break be too excessive?” Nicole asked, her voice gently teasing.
“Just turn it off,” Waverly groaned, pushing back into the curve of her body. “You win. I needed this.”
The phone alarm was turned off, and this time it wasn’t reset. When Nicole’s arms wrapped around her again, they pulled her in closer, held her tighter.
“Feeling better?” Nicole asked.
“Yeah, a lot,” Waverly sighed. It was true— the building frustrations of the day had been washed away by Nicole’s presence and blown away in the evening breeze.
She had really needed this.
But something about the heavier-than-usual weight of Nicole’s head on top of hers, or the loose grip of her arms, or maybe some subconscious tone or cadence in her voice, made Waverly wonder if she hadn't been the only one who’d had a tiring day. She reached back and trailed her fingers slowly from Nicole’s elbow to her wrist, and felt her sigh against her back. A slight increase in pressure let her know that just as she was leaning back against Nicole, Nicole was leaning forward against her, like they were both propping each other up.
She could feel the indent of the buttons and tie against her back, the familiar trappings of Nicole’s uniform. She plucked playfully at the button on the cuff of one of its sleeves. “Well, you obviously know how my day was. How was yours? How was work?”
Nicole’s first response was a sort of noncommittal hum, like she wasn’t sure how to answer.
“Busy,” she said finally, and Waverly could hear the muted tiredness in her voice.
“Good busy or bad busy?” she probed, covering Nicole’s hand with her own and stroking down the ridges of her knuckles.
“Kinda both,” Nicole answered. The vagueness of the response once again gave her away. Waverly turned slightly in her embrace, enough to catch a glimpse of her face. She didn’t look upset, but she did look tired. After a night of bad dreams and a long day at work, Nicole probably needed a break, too.
Waverly reached up to cup her cheek, and felt the familiar way she leaned into the touch. She turned the rest of the way around and rose to a kneeling position on the step, giving her the height she needed to pull Nicole into a kiss.
Nicole was slow to react at first, as their lips met. But as Waverly’s hand slid to the back of her neck, she relaxed into it, and by the time Waverly pulled back, she was smiling.
“Was that to make my day better?” she asked, a hint of a laugh in her voice.
“And mine. I think we both had pretty long days.” As if on the exact same wavelength, they leaned their foreheads together. Waverly drank in the feeling of closeness— the solid feel of Nicole in her arms, and the solid feel of Nicole’s arms around her. “But you know what else is good for long days?”
Nicole smiled indulgently.
“What?”
“Early nights.”
“Early nights when Wynonna isn’t home yet,” Nicole extrapolated, clearly taking a shine to the idea. Her eyes flitted towards the door. “But what about Jeremy?”
“Jeremy will understand that all those books and files will still be there in the morning and we can get back to them then.” Waverly’s hands found Nicole’s tie and tugged playfully. “Ready to go?”
As one, they rose to their feet, their hands alternately grasping at clothing and offering support. Nicole’s jacket was draped around her shoulders, followed by its owner’s arm, as they turned towards the Homestead.
“With you? Always.”