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Morning was dribbling in miserable, sharp bursts through the window of the shitty inn when Yasha opened her eyes with a groan. Curse Beau for getting her used to sleeping in a big, soft bed. Twenty-something years of roughing it, lost within two months of cuddling with Beau in the tower. Rest in pieces, etc.
Yasha rarely woke before Beau, and Beau always woke up within seconds of Yasha, and sure enough a sleepy smile poked its way through Yasha's grumpy, sullen grudge against morning as her girlfriend's breathing shifted in the telltale sign of waking.
It was impossible for a morning to be all bad when she got to watch Beau wake up like this, east-facing windows or no. The light, hateful as it may be, was also at the perfect angle to fall in bright splotches and streaks over the two of them. It took the perfunctory sheets from plain beige to a wonder of texture and brilliance, and a patch of it hovered just over Beau's right eye to make it shine radiant blue in the instant before she slammed it shut again and mumbled, "fuck. Ow."
Yasha wrapped her arms around Beau and turned them gently on their sides, where the light had a harder time spearing either of them directly in the eye and she could take a good look at Beau's angular features gone soft and smudgy with sleep.
Beau seemed to have the same idea, and Yasha couldn't help the blush that spread over her cheeks as Beau looked her over with that uninhibited and dopey kind of smile that said she liked what she saw and didn't care if everyone knew it.
"Morning, babe." Beau reached up and touched a heavy finger to Yasha's tattoo, still smiling. "You got a little light on your lip here, you know that?"
Yasha tilted her head down and made an exaggerated, slow bite towards Beau's fingertip, breaking into a soft chuckle when it was removed and replaced with Beau's lips. She pulled Beau's hips in flush to hers and didn't bother suppressing the little sound that came when Beau threw her leg over and brushed against Yasha's unurgent hardness.
Beau pulled back, grinning. "I'm very happy to see you too."
Yasha huffed and rolled to pin her down and drop kisses all over her forehead, her cheeks, her nose, scolding her with mock exasperation. "Two months, and you're still not tired of that joke?"
She let up at Beau's hands batting her away halfheartedly as her giggles faded slowly. "I'll get tired of it when it stops being funny."
"Mmmm." Yasha kissed her softly on the lips. "And maybe not even then, knowing you."
"See, you get me." Beau's hand rested on Yasha's neck, and now they slid up into her hair to thread through it to the end. Beau could do this for hours, she knew. Something about the slide of it through her fingers mesmerized her. Yasha didn't mind in the slightest - it felt so good.
Yasha lowered herself back half on her stomach beside Beau and closed her eyes, content to pass the last few moments of their morning this way before facing the day.
"Hey Yash?"
She opened her eyes and looked up expectantly.
"Whatever happened to your braids and stuff? You used to have all these little cuffs and things - it was really cool. Did something happen?"
She didn't tell Yasha she didn't have to answer if she didn't want to - it was understood by now. But there was no dark story or bad memory here - the reason was pretty simple. "I didn't actually do any of those," she admitted. "I never quite got the hang of how. Jester did them for me before…everything went wrong, and when I came back I just. Went too long without asking again and it got awkward."
Beau was alert and searching Yasha's face, fingers paused in their stroking. "Do you still have the stuff?"
"Mhmm. I keep them all in my pouch. Molly gave me most of them."
She was surprised to see Beau suddenly look a little - was she shy? "Do you want me to put them back in for you?"
It was a surprisingly nice thought. Yasha hadn't realized, really, how much she missed the weight and the feel of her hair in its many ties and metal beads. She liked the sound they made too, and she wasn't afraid of the reminders of Molly. His memory ached with a sweetness these days. "I think I'd like that, yes."
A smile broke over Beau's face. "Fuck yeah." She met Beau in another quick kiss before rolling away to stand up and stretch, perfectly aware of Beau's eyes on her and how much she liked what she saw. Maybe she stretched a little longer these days. It was good for the body.
She knelt to rummage in one of the pouches on her discarded belt, listening to the sheets rustle as Beau roused herself upright with a pleased hum to sit and wait at the edge of the bed. She held her cupped hands out and pored eagerly over the assortment of fabric scraps and bits of metal that Yasha tipped into them with a kind of slithering sound.
"I've never seen them up close like this before, wow. Some of these are really intricate." She held one up to look through it at Yasha. "This one looks handmade."
"It is. Molly made a few of them when he was bored and wanted an excuse to play with fire." Yasha sat cross-legged on the floor and pushed her bare back up against the side of the bed.
Beau's knees spread to better bracket Yasha's shoulders with another metallic slide as she poured the pieces into the little dent she'd made in the blanket beside her. "How come he got to do dangerous shit when he was bored?"
Yasha smiled as Beau's fingers began to separate a thick strand of her hair from the rest. "Because for him, it was the least dangerous distraction when he got in that mood. Sometimes I could talk him into…other stuff. Depended on the day."
Beau was quick to pick up on the intentional pause. "Other stuff like sex stuff?"
Yasha shrugged. "Sometimes sex, sometimes just playing with knots or candle wax or whatever we had. He tried a few times to teach me how to braid my own hair." She held up her fingers and flexed them thoughtfully. "I had the hang of it, once. But I liked letting him do it, so it never stuck."
"I could teach you," Beau said slowly. "But this is my first time doing it for you and I already see the appeal."
Yasha smiled, heart squeezing gently at both the memory of Molly and the now-ness of Beau. "I'm happy to let you." She considered. "Though I'm curious how you picked it up, what with all the rebelling."
"Hey," Beau said blithely. "Best way to hang out with girls is doing stuff girls like. And I'm really good with my fingers." She paused at Yasha's amused huff. "I wasn't even trying to make that a sex thing but you know, still not wrong."
"Not wrong," Yasha agreed. "Were there, um. Girls like me?"
They didn't talk about this much, how it had come to Yasha as something of a shock to find that outside of the tribe, there were places with a kind of defined sense of what constituted gender. It wasn't a subject they avoided, but it had seemed especially prevalent within the empire and caused some part of Yasha, however small, to ponder early on how much those ideas might matter to Beau and Caleb.
And then they had both turned out to be rebels in their own right in their different ways, just like her and Molly, so unspoken anxiety had become unspoken interest to know more.
"Oh for sure," said Beau. "Some of 'em were hanging out and braiding and stuff from the time they were little, and some of 'em figured it out later. Kamordah was a shitty place, but people there only cared about other people's money and where it went. Kinda comforting really."
Yasha spoke thoughtfully. "Did you ever think you might actually be the…your dad wanted a son, right?"
Beau was three braids in already and going strong. Yasha liked the way they pulled against the side of her head - how she could feel the air on her neck behind them.
"Yeah it took a while figure out," said Beau. "Option C takes some doing to reckon with, you know? Defining stuff by what's not there, still mostly going with the default terms, yadda yadda. I was worried for a while maybe I was just basing my whole life on spiting him, but nah." Yasha could hear her smile. "I'm just special."
"No arguments there," she said softly.
They passed a few minutes in companionable silence, Beau's fingers as swift and sure as Molly's but so different in their method. Something new to get used to. Yasha didn't mind in the slightest.
"Okay," said Beau. "Gonna come sit in the front for the next few."
Her legs vanished from behind Yasha to reappear a moment later in her periphery, then right in front of her. Yasha looked straight up at her face and reached out to grip Beau's muscled thighs, sliding her fingers all the way down those bronzed legs and leaning forward to press a kiss on the inside of one, as close to the warm center of her as proximity allowed.
Beau's breath caught, and her eyes wandered to Yasha's lap and back with a question inside of them. Yasha smiled and rubbed her thumbs lightly over Beau's ankles. "Not looking for anything, really. You're just amazing."
She shifted her own knees apart so that Beau could sit between them and better reach her hair. "Keep that up, and I might end up looking for something." She punctuated her words with a quick kiss to Yasha's jaw, then set down the remaining bits of metal and ribbon in the space between them and started working again.
This was an angle that Yasha could get terribly used to, and the thought hit her like a thunderclap. How often had she watched Beau poring over a book or recording something in her notes and thought how lovely she looked with the same expression fixed on her now? Being at the center of it was so much more than she'd expected. It was nearly overwhelming.
Yasha forced herself to sit still and wait, to do nothing but try and memorize the sight of Beau so focused on doing this thing for her that she didn't even make a deflective joke or blush or anything. There was nothing but her fingers and Yasha's hair and the delicate way she handled each piece of metal until finally, the familiar weight was re-settled and complete.
Beau sat back, hands still raised. "Holy shit, you look so good." She gave Yasha a tiny smile and seemed to notice for the first time the way Yasha was looking at her. Now she blushed faintly. "What is it?"
Yasha pulled her into a tight, fierce hug in the hopes she could communicate with touch what she couldn't find words to say. "I love you," she said, because that part was true and simple as ever.
Beau's arms squeezed back just as hard. "I love you too. Can I do this like every day?"
Yasha chuckled and didn't bother with a reply. Beau could do this whenever she wanted and she knew it.
A polite knock on the door was what pulled them apart after a long moment, and then Fjord's voice came through. "We're headed down for breakfast and leaving in half an hour."
They glanced as one at the assortment of clothes puddled on the floor.
"Yup," Beau called back. "Thanks."
She looked back to Yasha, arms still resting on her shoulders as she toyed idly with a metal piece. "What do you think the chances are this place has bacon?"
Yasha thought about it. "Well, it's easier to get around here than a few other places I could think of."
Beau sighed dramatically. "Darn. Well in that case, I guess we ought to make the effort."
Yasha nodded seriously. "If you start passing up bacon, what's next?"
Beau got to her feet, hands in Yasha's and eyes wide. "What if it's sex? Or push-ups? I need these muscles, Yasha."
"Best not to risk it," Yasha agreed. "Let's get you downstairs before your abs fall off."
They dressed quickly, exchanging garments as they found them in each other's piles. Midway through lacing her boots, Yasha looked up to find Beau fully dressed and grinning at her, leaned against the bed.
She couldn't help a bewildered return smile. "What?"
"Just thinking," said Beau. "We are exactly the couple I would make gagging noises at as a kid. Scratch that, I still would, except it's you, so it's not gross."
Yasha tipped her head. "It is a little gross."
"Oh sure, yeah. A little's good."
Yasha pushed herself to her feet and slung her swords over her back, stepping in to tower over Beau. "Yeah," she said. "I like little."
Beau made a fist and tapped it against Yasha's stomach. "You'd better."