Work Text:
What are you meant to do for a date? Flowers, candlelight? Candles would set off the smoke alarm, and unless Fennel presents the dandelions, hardy creatures clawing through the dirt at the side of their plant pots, fingernails edged with dirt, flowers are nigh impossible to find. So what does that leave?
Still, they’re not the most conventional couple, so keeping to the norms is the least of their worries. A date night (such an ephemeral term) seems almost an unnecessary formality, a pretence of courtship even when they’ve reached a level of familiarity far past that hesitant tension. Still, on those slow evenings where it’s only the two of them, Yvonne’s other girlfriends having left, the concept seems appealing.
As they lie slumped on the sofa, the music humming from Yvonne’s phone fades, fuzzy and ambient in their tired, blissful haze. Long finished was the movie (Fennel’s choosing, a long, rambling rom-com), the opening screen for the DVD playing over and over, muted as some sort of music- Fennel could never discern the artist- fills the room.
‘How do you like this, huh? Date night?’ Yvonne’s only response is a muffled something, murmured incomprehensibly into Fennel’s chest. ‘I see.’ They laugh, softly and with aching, knowing familiarity.
Yvonne’s hair is not soft, its strands worn by years of hair dye, years of bright colours and impulsive, choppy self-made haircuts and hairspray and love. It’s the perfect texture for Fennel’s hands, their fingers curling around the rough-hewn hair over and over. Their nails, short, worn down through hours in the soil, gently scrape Yvonne’s head, stroking again and again in such a familiar movement, this routine happening as often as it tends to be. Fennel’s caress is so dizzyingly calming, their hand so warm as it meanders towards Yvonne’s jaw, and she almost whimpers, leaning into their hand as Fennel’s heart swells in almost unbearable love. Yvonne melts into the touch with a shaky, tired sigh, somehow becoming even more limp in Fennel’s hands, and their heart pounds beneath her comforting weight, this calm love.
Yeah. Maybe a date night can be a good idea.