Work Text:
Something about this round of Cosima’s cabin fever made it difficult to chase away, even when Delphine strolled through the lab door bearing cabernet sauvignon and chocolate. When the blonde leaned in to give her a kiss, her hair smelled not only like floral soap and the faint tar of the occasional cigarette, but also a little like truck exhaust. Cosima never thought she would miss the smell of smog, but she inhaled again and tried to squash the sudden spike of jealousy that Delphine was allowed outside the lab while she had nothing better to do than watch the centrifuge spin.
“Joyeuse Saint-Valentin,” Delphine sing-songed in the mischievous tone that Cosima had come to recognize as meaning you may get lucky and not let’s bust you out of this corporate hellhole. Trouble-making was never how Delphine chose to play the game, but Cosima was still hoping that her girlfriend was only saving up rule-breaking for one epic escape plan. She expressed as much once, and Delphine hadn’t laughed.
“This is where you need to be.”
She didn’t say, “You’re dying, and we still don’t know why,” but that was the subtext in all of their interaction these days.
Instead, Delphine tapped her on the forehead with a candy pink envelope, which had the distinct odor of the Hallmark aisle of a pharmacy. Cosima crinkled her nose, but took the offending piece of parchment from the taller woman and returned the greeting. “Yeah. Happy Valentine's.”
What emerged from the envelope was only the world’s cheesiest paper valentine. “I wuv you,” Cosima read in disbelief, eyeing the wide-eyed, floppy-eared puppy on the cover with no small amount of distrust. Apparently it showed, because when she looked up, Delphine was grimly studying her reaction.
Cosima smiled a little despite herself and clicked her tongue in disapproval. She tapped the red cartoon heart that framed the puppy’s face. “Everyone knows that the heart isn’t the emotional center of the body,” she complained, dreadlocks tumbling over each other as she shook her head.
Delphine grimaced, but looked relieved. “I could be mistaken, but I don’t think they make holiday cards in the shape of the amygdala.”
“It’s cute. Absolutely, disgustingly cute. Thanks.” Cosima held the card in her palm for a few seconds, unsure of what to do with the dog with its glitter-glue eyes and its cartoon happiness. Then she pinned the card to the lab cork board (in the very corner of the heart, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much), sandwiched in between promising genome maps and a collection of take-out menus.
It was ridiculous. Grotesquely normal. It didn’t make a lick of sense, yet there it was.
She never took it down.