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“It’s been awhile since we’ve had a regular ol’ sleepover, hasn’t it?”
Anne says this wistfully, sitting on her bed with a coat draped over her shoulders. They had gone out into the town earlier; something about wanting the cityfolk to know that everyone’s alive and okay after the scare with Newtopia. Marcy thinks it was more for her benefit than theirs, though, and she shivers, still standing at the edge of Anne’s bed like it’s a boundary she’s unable to cross. In some ways, it is.
“And whose fault is that?” Sasha says, teasingly, and she can cross the boundary easily, sitting on the edge of Anne’s overly fancy bed. She’s already discarded of her own coat, and she’s absent of her usual guard attire, donning a simplistic outfit, one she would usually sleep in. Marcy would know– she’s felt that fabric with her own hands, has bunched it in between her fingers and held it like a lifeline. “You were the one who was always too busy to host sleepovers, you know.”
Anne huffs, but she looks sheepish now, and she’s smiling at Sasha, and there’s a part of Marcy that aches at the sight. “Yeah, well. I’m not busy now, am I? Come on; we can play Pirates again.”
“We haven’t played Pirates since we were eleven, ” Sasha argues, and she’s leaning on her knees on the bed to playfully swat at Anne, who finally takes her own coat off, tossing it into Sasha’s face. It’s childish, reminiscent of a childhood that feels so long ago, and yet Marcy feels out of place here. Like she’s watching a memory; she can’t disturb the picture, lest she wake up and find herself somewhere completely different.
She’s only been up on her feet for a week now, and it’s been the longest week of her life. This feeling - the displacement, like she’s dreaming - has yet to leave her fully, even when she’s spent the entire day on her feet, arm in arm with the ones that she loves and the ones that love her in return. She can’t help the way her body tingles with dread, like if she blinks, or looks away for too long, everything will fade back into that vibrant, piercing orange– nothing more than a lost memory trying to resurface.
But it doesn’t. Instead, after Sasha sputters indignantly and knocks Anne’s coat to the floor in an attempt to get it off of her face, Anne turns to Marcy, and there’s something fond and loving in her face. She’s looked at Marcy like that before, but Marcy - for all she tries to insist otherwise - has never been able to predict Anne and her emotions. Before, she couldn’t recognize the love and affection that melts off of Anne in spades, but she can place that look with words now.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
Marcy repeats the way they sound in her mind. Anne has never told her so much before, and yet Marcy can hear them in her voice, which means they’re real, and if they’re real, that means this is real. Not a dream or a memory; she’s actually here.
She’s here.
“Don’t have too much fun without me,” she says, giving Anne a small wink as she finally takes off her own coat. Underneath it, though, she’s draped in long sleeves– her body still hasn’t fully recovered from handling such a powerful source of magic, after all, and it’s made her ridiculously sensitive to the weather. Still, she feels warm just being here, in this room, on this bed as she crosses the mental barrier and sits at the edge of the bed.
“She’s bullying me,” Sasha complains.
“You told me my idea was dumb!” Anne argues back, and she’s reaching out with both hands to take one of Marcy’s gloved ones, tugging her oh-so gently to the middle of the bed. Marcy follows helplessly, and isn’t that the story of her life? She would follow anywhere so long as Anne or Sasha were the ones leading. “Come on, Marmar, you gotta be our tiebreaker. What sleepover activities should we do?”
Marcy pretends to give it some thought, her head tilted. “I say,” she starts, as wisely as she can muster, digging into herself for even a shard of the confidence she had once possessed so easily, “that we… sleep, because I for one am exhausted.”
“You’re no fun,” Anne huffs, but she’s smiling, still smiling, and she draws Marcy into her so easily . It’s almost embarrassing how quickly Marcy folds, letting herself fall into Anne’s arms, curling against her chest with a sigh. “Maybe we did work you a bit too hard; you’re still healing.”
“I would’ve said something if it was too much.”
“No, sweetheart, you would not,” Sasha chides, and she’s joining the embrace from the other side, now, leaning over Marcy’s back so that she’s completely smothered. She doesn’t think she minds it so much– it’s actually quite comforting, the way that she feels secure and safe crushed between them. “You’d let it build until you physically collapsed. I’ve seen it happen.”
“No you didn’t,” Marcy says, drowsy, “you never saw anything. That never happened.”
She can’t see it from her position, but she thinks she can physically feel Sasha scowling down at her. “Marcy-”
“-didn’t happen. You don’t know what you’re talking about, love.”
Anne’s snickering along as Sasha makes a frustrated growl in her throat. “You’re insufferable. Why do I put up with you again?”
“I think it’s because you love me,” Marcy says, and then freezes. For a second, that dread fills her again, tingling in her fingers and toes like her body’s going numb, because she suddenly can’t remember if that’s something she’s allowed to say. Did she dream it? She knows that Anne’s confession had been real and tangible, but had Sasha’s?
For a second, Sasha doesn’t say anything. Marcy can feel her breathing, though, and she never pulls away for a second– if anything, she draws closer, arms tightening around Marcy’s sides.
“You think?” And her tone is playful, not admonishing, not disgusted. Just light, and airy, like this is no big deal, and Marcy relaxes. “Lovely, if you don’t know by now, I haven’t done my job right.”
Marcy’s shoulders tremble, and then she’s giggling with relief, the tension in her body melting away. “I don’t think you have. Prove it to me.”
“Not if I don’t get to you first,” Anne cuts in, and she’s pulling Marcy into a kiss. It’s loving, like all things that Anne does; she tilts Marcy’s chin with one hand, draws her in with the other, takes it slow and soft and pulls away before Marcy can lose too much air. Even when she pulls away, though, she’s peppering kisses all along Marcy’s face, smothering her cheeks and nose and forehead and she’s definitely wearing lipstick and now it’s all over Marcy’s face, this was a bad idea-
-except Marcy doesn’t mind one bit.
“Okay, Princess, it’s my turn,” Sasha butts in, and she’s tugging Marcy out of Anne’s arms like Marcy’s an object, and maybe in a few weeks Marcy will complain about this, but for now she just melts into the affection. Sasha’s kissed her before - maybe too many times - but Marcy savors each one, sighs dreamily as Sasha kisses her, passionate and competitive, like she truly believes she has something to prove, that she hadn’t stolen half of Marcy’s heart away at the age of eleven.
“This is one crazy sleepover,” Anne jokes when Sasha finally pulls away.
“Oh, shut up,” Sasha rolls her eyes, and Marcy finds herself squished once again as Sasha leans over her, dragging Anne into a kiss as well. This, too, she doesn’t mind– she snuggles into Anne’s chest and stays there even when they’ve pulled away from each other, glasses digging into her skin as she makes herself comfy.
“Maybe we should go to bed now,” Anne says, and she’s stroking Marcy’s hair - or maybe that’s Sasha, Marcy can’t tell from this position - “today was a long day; I’m exhausted too.”
“You two get settled,” Sasha presses a kiss to Marcy’s head, and then she’s pulling away from Marcy’s back, eliciting a sleepy whine. She takes Marcy’s glasses with one hand and the fallen coats with the other, and Marcy listens for her footsteps as she jumps off of the bed. “I’ll be right there, okay?”
“You heard our Captain, Marmar,” Anne says, and it’s definitely her hand in Marcy’s hair now, gently stroking, “get some rest. We’ll be here when you wake up; promise.”
“Love you,” Marcy whispers.
“Love you too, Marbles,” Anne whispers back, and Marcy thinks she hears Sasha say it as well, far-away and dreamy.
Love. They love her. It still feels so surreal, and yet here she is, drifting off in the arms of her princess, one of the loves of her life, and this is something she gets to have for the rest of her life.
It’s not a dream. This is real.