Work Text:
“O-Oh, Kaisa, I don’t think...” Johanna flinched as Kaisa settled a hand on her wrist.
“What is it?” The concern in her eyes was so warm and so deep, Johanna wondered how she’d never felt the absence of it before.
“This,” she said softly. “I don’t think I know how to do this anymore.” She could see Kaisa’s mouth almost open, the comfort she wanted to say filling her throat with flowers. “Can I get you more tea?”
“Sure,” she said, the words falling a little flat. “Thank you.” She tried to smile when Johanna handed Kaisa her cup, but it was weak, flickering like a tired lightning bug.
“When I was Hilda’s age, I was quite the adventurer,” Johanna said, her voice a tentative apology. “But even then, this…well, it wasn’t exactly my—”
“—cup of tea?” Kaisa was beside her, suddenly, leaning against the counter, her face resting against her palm. She looked lovely like that, casual but attentive. A streak of purple in a comforting night sky.
A bolder version of herself would take Kaisa’s face in her hands and kiss her on the corner of her mouth without hesitation.
The teacup clattered against the sink.
“Ah, sorry, I was—”
“I want us to talk about this. Can we do that?” Johanna looked into Kaisa’s eyes and found herself nodding. The thing about Kaisa was that she was irresistible—magical, practically, if it weren’t too ironic to use the word. She was witty, and soft, and understanding; she told stories like she was born to be around a campfire, and she was happy to sit within the quiet with her, turning the pages of a book or sleeping, her arm curled sweetly around a cushion.
Kaisa touched a finger to Johanna’s hand, and there it was again—that angry flicker of electricity. Felt like a sneeze of a careless god, her whole body jolting from an action only meant in kindness.
And that—that was the problem, wasn’t it? The incommunicable thing she didn’t know how to wrestle into words. She looked at someone she cared for, and she wanted to touch them. The absence of it cold; the presence of it almost unbearable.
“You alright?” Kaisa pressed her hand between Johanna’s shoulders and she winced, her whole body seizing up with fear and something she couldn’t bring herself to name.
“You always do that!” Johanna busied herself with the dishes with a chill she immediately regretted. “Why?”
“I—thought it might give you some comfort.”
“I want it to.” Johanna sighed. “You have no idea how much I’ve daydreamed over—nothing, absolutely nothing, just—brushing someone’s hand at the grocery store.” She threw up her hands in a defeated gesture. “An awkward side hug that lasts hardly a second. And now.” She folded the dishtowel in thirds and slid it around the oven’s handle. “And now you’re here. And you’re brave about these things in a way I never learned how to be.”
Oh, Johanna.
“It’s not bravery, it’s impulse,” Kaisa said, digging her nails into her wrist. “I wanted to touch you as soon as I met you. It’s communication for me. It’s how I know people.” She turned and paced the living room, long strides in front of the fireplace. The light from the flames dancing on her face. “It’s such an inconvenience.”
“No! It’s lovely.”
“But you can’t stand it.” Kaisa bit her lip, a dark pit opening in her stomach as she was confronted, yet again, with the realization of this terrible fear.
“It’s…not that I can’t stand it,” Johanna said, rubbing her arm.
“Well that really gives me back my confidence.”
“No! That’s—ugh.” She pressed her fingers to her forehead, and the gesture caught Kaisa off-guard. It made her look so much like a mom somehow, the palpable effort she was making to communicate what, to her, must be such a heavy burden. The weight of Johanna’s life hit her in a way it hadn’t before. If this little garden between them became something more, she’d be inserting herself into a family. Forcing space for herself in a household of two.
“I want you to do it again,” Johanna said quietly, shattering her anxiety like a cheap pane of glass.
“Which part?” Johanna took a tentative step toward her.
“The part where you touch me.”
“Oh.” Kaisa let go of her wrist and flexed her fingers. “A-Alright.”
***
“What does it feel like?”
“Warm.” Kaisa moved her hand to Johanna’s hair, trying not to feel sad at the little jolt she made.
“And this?”
“It’s nice.” Johanna pulled Kaisa half a centimeter closer. You’re nice. And persistent, and…
Kaisa had an expression that reminded her a bit of when Hilda jumped into a puddle for the first time.
“…yes?”
“Sometimes you stare into the distance like a little dazed cat.” Kaisa looked at her, pleased with the revelation. Johanna turned pink, groaning softly into her hands.
“I think I liked it better when you were just holding me.”
***
The sky darkened far too soon, late enough that the streetlamps cast Johanna’s face in oil-painted serenity. Neither of them forced the evening to end. They stood together against the apartment building, pretending to simply take in the fresh air.
“That’s the thing about being alone.” Johanna spoke quietly, the words following each other like the boxcars on a toy train. “If you’re in an empty house, there’s no mystery why no one is talking to you. You can sit with yourself and look at how the plants turn towards the light in the windows, and…” She shuddered at the little spiral of guilt that flowered in her chest. “You can even enjoy it sometimes.”
Kaisa watched a dark shape shuffle behind a tree and wished she had something more to offer than silence.
“But if you want to talk to someone, and they ignore you…” Johanna fiddled with the tassels of her scarf. “There could be a thousand reasons for that, and almost all of them are my fault.”
“Jo…” Kaisa couldn’t get anything else out of her mouth.
“I—sorry, I know that was a little…”
“No!” Kaisa pressed herself into Johanna’s side, wishing she could wriggle into her deep red coat like a sparrow. “You have a lot you carry with you. I don’t blame you for that.”
Johanna wondered if it was her accent that made the words so sweet, or if it was her kindness that dusted them with sugar.
“I can’t promise—well, that I know anything about what I’m doing,” Johanna said, tilting her head to look at the moon. “But I’d like to try.” She laced her hands behind herself, the warmth from her own fingers familiarly bland. “Would you mind that? Even if it takes a while?”
Kaisa gave her a small but unmistakable nudge.
“I think you’re exactly the person I’ve been waiting for.”