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"Are you awake, cherie?"
It hovers in the air between them, no reply to have as the spider rests her forehead against her outlaw's spine, hands holding hers holding hers.
No, evidently.
And then Ashe moves. Pressing closer, fingers lacing as she murmurs.
"Sort of..."
Then it's fine. She can tell her anything.
It's not quite routine. But there's a particular, and her girlfriend wants to know if that's what it is. "Nightmares?"
Amélie shakes her head gently. "No, I'm merely finding it difficult to... to sleep."
"Insomnia," Ashe breathes, like she's been there before. It takes her a moment, lethargic still as she moves properly from her grasp, rolling onto her back – she'd feel bad for taking her from it if Ashe weren't so determined, and her outlaw still welcomes her after, literally; arms making to encircle her shoulders as Amélie rests her head against her chest, Ashe's fingers playing with her hair.
Ashe's eyes are still closed. Like she's holding onto the memory of sleep as she works her way through each individual strand; her other hand is as it was, running fingertips along hers, small electrical pinpricks registering on her skin, barely there. Amélie feels Ashe breathe – inhale, exhale – and it's… soothing, even if she's yet to say anything more.
It's quiet. Safe and secure, so far away from everything else.
Amélie smiles for her. "You always know just what I need."
"Practice," Ashe grins, opening her eyes. "I know you… and me."
It's true. She does. Time passing, Amélie knows, in more ways than one. The days are getting colder out here in the Gorge, not that desert nights are ever anything else, and neither is she. Ashe isn't; always warm, a minor sun to gravitate around, and Amélie feels… well, not better, because she still isn't yet asleep, but…
She means it, that it helps. And she finds herself taking note of each small detail, of here and now, so that it won't be forgotten. Not that she could – consequences, of being trained to see everything. But these moments are theirs, and that's how it's different. The quirk at the corner of Ashe's mouth. The quiet contended hum in her collarbone. Pale, and beautiful, and entirely devoted to her—
All things Ashe.
So much. She's lucky to have found her. So fortunate to have her, her loud and overly ambitious heart.
Ashe's hands stop moving. Her outlaw's been thinking too, it seems, about something long and hard. Whatever it is amuses her, whimsical enough for her to pause the absentminded braid she's half way through one handed, deciding to go ahead with it.
"Once upon a time," she starts, "there was a pampered princess."
Amélie feels her lip curve. "You?"
Ashe makes a non-committal noise. "Just shush and listen to the story," she remarks as she squints down at her, and on the next rise of her chest Amélie chuckles, feeling the reverb in her ribs, because yes, it is. "The princess should've had everything she wanted – but she didn't. She found it lacking. And with no knights to come and save her, she ran away..."
She's embellishing: romanticising. Trying to keep it different enough, so that it won't bother her… but the beginnings of a frown are clear to her even from here, as it always is. Yet when Amélie lifts her head she's greeted with a trademark Deadlock calibre grin instead, and the spider silently persuades their held hands to rise so that she can run a thumb across Ashe's cheek, and she's surprised.
"They did not deserve her," Amélie says, with conviction – and Ashe blinks it into a wider smile, appreciative. "What did the princess do?"
"She became a pirate," her outlaw continues, not missing a beat. "She stole and got all that she desired. And the other pirates weren't all too happy, not with her doing things her way, but she was suave and savvy and knew how to operate things so that they all could benefit… and if there was nothing that could scare her way from her plunder, they wouldn't either. She made accords happen. And so she became the best damn pirate the kingdoms had ever seen.
"But of course no pirate queen's anything without a crew that'd back her, that'd do anything she says," Ashe says, pensive. "A family. And then one day she's in a tavern wiling away her hours, and she met—"
She ponders. Long enough that Amélie figures she won't mind the suggestion.
"A dancer?"
"A siren," Ashe enthuses. "The most enchanting creature from the depths that she'd ever seen."
"Hmm," Amélie half smiles, as Ashe exudes her fondness for her. Drowner of men; devourer of hearts. It's fitting. "Did they fall in love?"
"You bet they did," Ashe says, grinning with a finger curled against her lower lip, glad that she thought of it. "But being an expert in wanting things she could've have, the pirate queen – she didn't try to tame her. She just… loved her. With everything she had. And when the storm eventually chased them down, the siren chose her too. And they lived happily ever after and all that."
It's certainly an abrupt ending, however conclusive, and Amélie shakes her head against her outlaw's collarbone, just a little. "I think you're skipping over several steps, cherie."
"That's the boring bit," Ashe shrugs, dismissive. "No one wants to hear about the sad stuff. Like, two whole hours of pining?"
She knows the vagueness that Ashe is referring to, about the film they'd watched just the other night where exactly that had happened – and despite her present words, Amélie remembers how involved and invested Ashe got and was, how abrasive that the stupid-ass lovers didn't just say what they were thinking, how teary eyed she became that circumstances kept them separate, eventually citing that the yearning did nothing for her whilst in fact she was deeply moved.
Amélie chuckles, knowing better as to her narrative preferences. All weaknesses for only her to see… no matter how minor they are.
"If you say so."
She'd kissed her then, at the end. When love was a triumph, and Amélie takes the initiative, and Ashe murmurs above her. It's been hours but she longs for her, wanting all that she is – and it's so assuring, that this will be the way things will always be so long as they're together.
And they will. Amélie wonders if she'll dream of them, the faceless siren and her pirate, seeing their story through to the end. Or maybe they don't need to, but as Ashe seeks to part, she finds she isn't yet done.
"One more, cherie," she insists and Ashe smiles into her mouth. One or a hundred. Another to steal simply because she can, and Ashe placing her lips against her forehead after.
She doesn't often do it; too soft, a step above and outside her flirtatious nature where cute girls deserve compliments and beautiful ones should be seduced and that's everyone. But that makes it greater, somehow, that she's likely the only person she's felt comfortable enough around, to be this way with.
Where she doesn't have to prove a thing.
She's thinking again. Busy pulling holes in her own make-believe story as her brow creases from the self criticism, clicking her tongue. "Darn it," Ashe muses, once more fully preoccupied. "I didn't think up a role for Bob…"
"I thought this wasn't a story about us?"
She gets another slanted look for that, a finger making contact with her nose as Ashe flicks it – messing with her, maybe, because Amélie's right, and she knows it.
Well. As she insists.
Her hand and finger falls, but Amélie halts their descent, sweeping the both of them to her lips like she might place a kiss upon them in return–
And then instead, she licks it.
Ashe laughs, staggeringly louder as the realisation dawns, pulling a face as she protests and pulls them back. "Gross," she says, snickering like she still can't quite believe it, wiping her knuckles clean on Amélie's shoulder. "You're gross."
Amélie hums to herself, shrugging. "You certainly weren't complaining about it last night…"
She's making her own bed to literally lie in as she smirks, airy and devious, and oh, she can tell that she is in for it tomorrow. "Very funny," Ashe says, voice an octave higher out of sarcasm. It's her final word, her cemented authority. Is there aught better than an Ashe who does have something to prove, Amélie wonders… but for now her girlfriend settles with sticking out her tongue to further her denial, fake as it is.
It doesn't work. She really should know better.
"You started it."
"I'm finishing it. Don't," she adds as she sees the snicker, the glint in Amélie's eye at how she's chosen to take it, electing to kiss her to shut her up.
Regardless of her motives, it's still nice. Thorough. "Very well," Amélie acquiesces. "You make a compelling point. And I think, for Bob… surely he would be the pirate queen's first mate?"
"Nah, he's a captain," Ashe says, shaking her head. "Maybe the pirate queen's more like an admiral…"
She's picturing it. Daydreaming of ships and gold and their more land based counterparts.
"And la sirène?"
Ashe blinks, looking back down at her. "Whatever she wants to be, the siren can have."
She thinks. Dancer. Wife.
Agent. Assassin.
Rebel.
La petite sirène.
One who could not rely on wishes and love and nigh lost her voice forever, no sea foam left to take her, drowning beneath the heavy weight of the endless black abyss and its waves. But Amélie thinks she has her answer, smile quiet at the corner of her mouth as she says it.
"Yours?"
She can see, how much her saying that unmakes her, because she knows.
"Mine," her outlaw agrees, like it's incredible.
What Ashe wants most—
—what she does, too.
Amélie falls asleep in her arms soon after, Ashe's story having done its trick for the both of them.