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“Your hair is all tangled,” Marella commented, eyes shining in the dark as he bumped his shoulder against Biana’s.
Biana sighed, looping their arms together and tugging her further into the Redek’s back garden.
“It’s been a rough week I think,” Biana admitted, quietly.
Marella hummed, “You think.”
His voice was gentle in the deep, damp air around the two of them. She was used to Biana being unsure about her feelings. Marella didn’t mind.
“You mind telling me about it?” He wasn’t pressuring; It was a request, built on years of cultivated trust in their friendship. She was ready to listen, and willing to accept if Biana wasn’t ready to talk.
Biana’s hand dropped and tangled with Marella’s, their arms still entwined.
“Dad’s been pushing Fitz to think about a relationship.” The air smelled like earth and the sweet faint scent of flowers.
Marella considered this information silently; Fitz was aro-spec (and was in a relationship with his closest friend, Keefe Sencen, but hadn’t told his father that, knowing Alden would assume he was lying about being aromantic).
“A hetero one?” She finally asked, his jaw imperceptibly tightening. Fitz had been clear about what he wanted. An “ideal heterosexual white picket fence romance” was not one of those things.
Leave it to the patriarch of the Vacker household to try to ignore his children’s identities. They had already lost a relationship with their oldest sibling -Alvar- because of Alden’s ignorance and apathy to his children’s needs and wants. Marella knew that despite his friendly demeanor around her, he didn't really consider him Biana's partner, and it would probably be worse for Fitz, who already had to deal with people not respecting his orientation.
Biana's silence was answer enough.
Anger welled hot and burning in Marella's stomach, and she stopped walking, causing Biana to stumble a moment before turning to him. She abruptly wrapped her in a hug, fingers lifting up to smooth Biana's hair gently, her face tucked tightly into his neck.
“I’m sorry love,” he whispered. Biana relaxed into Marella’s arms and they stayed that way, swaying slightly as they both stood off-balance in their effort to hold the other as tightly as possible.
“It helps that you’re here,” Biana murmured, voice muffled into Marella’s shoulder. “I just worry that one day it’s all gonna hit me and I’ll break.”
A sigh parted her lips, warming the spot where they were pressed against Marella.
The silence smoothed between them like the spiraling twist of smoke that comes after blowing out a candle, warm and entrancing, and they leaned into it. It wasn’t often Biana was able to sit quietly with someone, but Marella always brought peace in his arms.
“Let’s stay out here tonight,” Marella offered, “My moms won’t mind.”
Biana protested, “They planned dinner for us, we can’t just ignore that. Plus you know how much they avoid using the oven.”
Marella laughed at that, full-throated and smiling.
“You’re right about that, they were arguing about who had to make the casserole this morning.” She paused, her chest still rumbling a bit with a chuckle. “Okay Bee, how about we stay out here, and grab some of the food later?”
His eyes were sparkling again and Biana rolled her eyes right back at him. She loved her a ridiculous amount.
“Fine,” she conceded, “but only if you’re sure your moms won’t mind.”
Marella gave a triumphant smirk. “They’re used to me being late for dinner.” His following wink made Biana blush and tuck her head into his shoulder again.
"You're an ass, I'm surprised they put up with you," Biana teased, tickling under Marella's arm and then dancing, laughing and spinning, away, the tenseness in her temples loosening. Marella gasped in mock scandal and chased after her, her laughter twining together with Biana's as he caught her up in a tight hug from behind, full of elbows and beating hearts and sparkling breath in the night air. She peppered Biana's warm brown cheeks with kisses, grinning against Biana's giggles as she turned her head to make Marella kiss her lips instead.
They stilled after a moment, breath still tangling together, chests still caught in laughter, and Biana rested her head back against Marella. "Thank you, Mar," Biana's voice clipped tinny through the air; too sharp, too tired, too monotone. Marella's fingers trailed on her arms, curling warm against her skin.
"I know," He whispered, warm breath ghosting across Biana's cheek, where he had been placing kisses just minutes before. "Always Bee."
Their bodies snugly tucked together, and Marella sighed in a heavy, comfortable way. She was holding the person she loved, he was supporting her when she needed it. Holding Biana like a prayer, tight and reverent, a plea, a praise.
"I love you," he sing-songed, "I love you soooooo much."
Biana was enveloped in the arms of one of the only people in the world who knew her secrets and loved her anyway. Who saw how she shut down, how she stumbled and ignored her own needs, and still walked open-eyed into loving her. She scrubbed a hand at her face and wriggled around in Marella's tight grip, burying her face into his welcoming hug. A shuddering breath escaped from her mouth like the sigh of a weight becoming unmoored from her shoulders.
Biana poked her cold nose into Marella's shoulder and smirked at his small yelp.
"I love you too, now tag, you're it!" And then Biana was scampering away, smile tucked into the corner of her lips like a small pressed flower that had been tucked haphazardly into her pocket last week, it's delicate petals still intact once she had remembered to put it on her dresser after a few days of carrying it everywhere with her.
Marella took up the chase, curly blond hair bouncing as she dodged trees and spun around corners, fingers stretching out after Biana and her roaring laugh emerging between stolen gasps and half-hearted threats thrown after her girlfriend. The earth packed cool and soft against their pounding feet -shoes left forgotten at the Redek's front door, somewhere between Marella's kisses and his moms' welcoming hugs- and their hearts thrummed wildly, the chilly night warming with the bursting youth of their banter and moving limbs, their lungs trying to keep up with the running and the "I love you, you bastard"s intermingled with their laughter. They drank the night air in, letting it coat their skin with puffs of cold, their breath leaving trails of fog in their wake.
Biana swiped at a low-hanging branch, giggling as her legs threatened to give out beneath her, and she stumbled to a lazy skip, hand gripping at a tree as she used her momentum to spin around it, launching her directly into Marella, who crashed to a halt in front of her. They both crumpled gracelessly to the ground, a mound of raucous laughter, grass-stained clothes, and bright smiles, their hands already scrabbling to meet and tangle and hold. Marella tugged their linked palms up, kissing Biana's knuckles with openmouthed laziness and heavy breaths, before he rolled back, eyes closed as she tried to get his wind back.
"No tag backs," She barely managed, and Biana heaved a laugh that was actually a wheeze and a gasp, and Marella flopped over onto her. "You're comfy." Biana weakly pushed him away, but there was no effort behind it and her arm plumped back down.
"You're gonna squish me all out, and then I won't be able to eat your mother's lovely dinner." Biana said, with an affectedly strained voice. Her forehead was damp with sweat, and Marella wiped one hand on it, to push away the hair that stuck to her face.
"If Humpty Dumpty was from a kingdom run by lesbians, then he would've been fine."
Biana peeked open an eye and tipped her head up to look at Marella. "What?"
"I was gonna say like, I could call the king's men and the king's horses and all that-" Marella gestured vaguely with the hand that wasn't relentlessly clutched between both of Biana's- "But then I realized that they failed, so I figured if they had been lesbians they would have been able to fix him."
Biana nodded sagely, her heart still galloping, but her lungs working easier on pulling air in. "Ah yes, the 'I can fix him' mentality."
"Noooo," Marella shoved at her shoulder, but she missed and ended up pushing leaves into her hair, "I just think that queer women could do it better." Biana hummed in acknowledgement, and then they both fell silent, chests rising and falling in tandem. Finally Biana pulled herself and pushed absently at her wild hair, grimacing at it when she realized how tangly it truly was.
She tugged at Marella's hand, and he peered at her, a lazy question on his face.
Biana slid close, placing her lips directly by her ear, and whispered: "If you don't fucking take out the leaves from my hair before we go in, I will tell your moms that you took me out here to do scandalous things and then chased me around the garden like the rapscallion you are."
Marella sat up quickly, protesting as she did so.
"You tagged me first! If anyone deserves the slander it's you, for tickling me and then blaming me when I got you, fair and square." But she was already scooting across the ground and tugging Biana along behind him, stretching before leaning back against a tree and patting the ground between her sprawled legs. "Here, I'll take them out."
Biana shivered as she tucked herself against Marella, the drying sweat chilling her in the cool air, and the moon shone patiently down on the two as they settled a bit more.
Marella's fingers were gentle and warm, threading smoothly through Biana's dark brown waves that pooled to the base of her neck, right above her shoulder blades. She deftly and thoroughly wound his way from her forehead to the nape of her neck, pausing every so often to carefully work out a tangle or a leaf fragment. They were both silent as she worked, though Biana poked and fidgeted with a tear in the knee of Marella's jeans, her fingers sometimes dragging against her bare skin and leaving Marella with a small thrill as he sectioned Biana's hair into a few portions.
He collected a strand of loose hair, and she paused a moment to rub the soft patch of skin behind Biana's ear, who sighed, her shoulders relaxing imperceptibly as she slumped loosely in front of Marella. Biana's left hand left where it had worked with her right to unravel the hole in Marella's jeans just a bit more, and instead splayed into the dirt beside them, fingers curling into the damp earth and rubbing it between the pads of them. Marella gathered another portion and started to plait them together, stopping one second to kiss the crown of Biana's head and then continuing on steadily, her hands sure and movements smooth.
Biana came undone under the calming touch of Marella's patient work like the lace of a too-tight shoe that had refused to budge before finally coming loose and granting relief to the poor bloke who had worn it for too long. It felt like sinking beneath the surface of a pool after spending longer than the suggested fifteen minutes in a hot tub. Startling and refreshing all at once.
The tension drained from her, a waterfall, a creek in a forest, a bubbling and rushing and then, the aching and longed-for silence.
Marella's breath on her neck felt like peace.
Caprise Redek found the two curled together under their willow tree, low branches trailing around them with golden leaves like a halo for their whole bodies, and she smiled into her hand before slipping back inside to grab her wife and a thick blanket.
Marella lay with Biana half-way on his lap, both hands held loosely in hers, face pressed into a braid that was slowly working it's way into becoming undone, no hair-tie to hold it. They were both smiling while they slept.